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V 


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TO 

THE  HONORABLE  JOHN  M.  HARLAN, 

ONE  OF  THE  JUSTICES   OF  THE  SUPREAIE  COURT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 

THIS  VOLUME  rs  DEDICATED 

AS  A  MARK  OF  E5TEE.M  FOR  HIS  HIGH  CHARACTER  AND  GREAT 

ABILITIES,  AND  OF  GRATITUDE  FOR  HIS  KINDNESS. 


)     )   )   )   ,  J         '   >  , 


CHAPTER  I. 

Going  to  England  in  May,  1891,  I  was 
fortunate  enough  to  have  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Justice  Harlan,  of  the  Supreme  Court,  intro- 
ducing me  to  Lord  Coleridge.  I  delayed 
sending  it  for  some  days  after  getting  to 
London,  knowing  that  the  courts  and  Parlia- 
ment were  in  session,  and  supposing  that  his 
duties  on  the  Bench  and  in  the  House  of 
Lords  would  occupy  his  Lordship's  time  so 
that  he  would  have  little  leisure,  if  he  had 
the  inclination,  to  shov/  me  any  attention. 
At  last,  however,  I  sent  the  letter  by  post 
with  my  card,  and  the  next  day  received  the 
following  note  from  his  Lordship : 

I  Sussex  Square,  Hyde  Park,  W., 

9th  July,  1891. 

My  Dear  Sir — I  have  received  with  great  interest 

Mr.  Justice  Harlan's  note  of  introduction  and  I  shall 

be  extremely  glad  to  be  of  any  service  to  you  in  my 

(5) 


.      '/        '     T: 


r     <     _<     ^t    '        f^rfcc 


'     t   -  t     t 


'       < 


6  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

power.  An}"-  day  next  week  except  Saturday  (and 
Saturday  in  this  week)  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  see 
you  in  my  room  and  to  give  you  a  seat  upon  the  Bench. 
Do  you  chance  to  be  disengaged  on  Thursday,  the 
i6th  (this  day  week)?  If  you  are  and  will  come  and 
dine  here  on  that  day  at  8  o'clock  it  vv^ill  give  Lady 
Coleridge  and  me  much  pleasure. 

Your  faithful  servant, 

W.  P.  Fishback,  Esq.  Coleridge. 

I  called  on  Monday  at  his  Lordship's  room 
in  the  Law  Courts  building,  in  the  Strand, 
and  found  his  secretary  in  waiting.  That 
gentleman,  a  venerable-looking,  mild-man- 
nered person,  v/as  seated  in  the  anteroom  at 
a  table  upon  which  there  was  a  tray  of  goose- 
quiii  pens.  As  soon  as  his  Lordship  arrived, 
I  was  ushered  into  his  presence.  Lord  Cole- 
ridge was  very  tall,  six  feet  three  inches,  I 
should  suppose,  with  an  erect,  stout,  but  not 
corpulent  figure.  He  had  a  fine,  large  head, 
with  a  smooth,  benignant  face,  a  winning 
smile,  and  a  voice  gentle  and  well  modulated. 
Since  the  first  publication  of  this  paper  in  June, 
1894,  I  have  read  some  reminiscences  of 
Lord  Chief-Justice  Coleridge,  written  by  the 
present  Lord  Chief-Justice,  Lord  Russell  of 
Killowen,  which  were  published  in  the  North 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  7 

American  Review,  September,  1894.  Lord 
Russell  says  that  Lord  Coleridge  possessed 
"a.  voice,  the  beauty  of  which  I  have  not 
often  known  surpassed.  Indeed,  if  I  except 
the  voices  perhaps  of  Sir  Alexander  Cock- 
burn,  Mr,  Gladstone,  the  present  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  and  the  late  Father  Burke,  of  the  Do- 
minican order,  I  shall  have  exhausted  the 
list  of  those  who  may  be  said  to  have  been 
his  superiors  in  this  respect. ' ' 

Lord  Coleridge  greeted  me  most  cordially, 
and,  while  his  secretary  was  getting  the  gown 
and  wig,  he  said  that  when  in  the  United  States, 
in  1883,  the  people  had  almost  spoiled  him  by 
their  kindness.  He  spoke  of  our  Presidents, 
and  said  it  v/as  a  matter  of  amazement  to  him, 
when  he  considered  our  method  of  choosing  a 
chief  magistrate,  that  we  were  so  uniformly  fort- 
unate in  selecting  such  able  men.  He  spoke 
especially  of  President  Arthur,  upon  whom 
he  had  made  a  call  of  courtesy  at  the  White 
House.  When  he  rose  to  leave,  the  Presi- 
dent said,  "  No,  stay  longer.  I  wish  to  have 
a  chat  with  you ;  you  have  no  idea  what  a 
relief  it  is  to  have  a  visitor  who  is  not  after  an 
office."      He  was  delighted  with  Mr.  Arthur, 


8  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

whom  he  found  to  be  a  reader  of  good  books 
and  full  of  interesting  literary  gossip.  It  was 
a  shame,  he  thought,  that  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  a  republic  of  sixty  million  people 
should  be  compelled  to  waste  so  much  time 
in  settling  disputes  between  claimants  for 
office. 

During  the  talk  Lord  Coleridge's  son  Gil- 
bert came  in,  and  he  was  full  of  cordiality 
and  kindness.  They  both  spoke  of  Secretary 
Blaine's  ability  as  a  diplomat,  and  were  es- 
pecially complimentary  in  what  they  said  of 
his  then  recent  note  to  Baron  Fava,  concern- 
ing the  New  Orleans  riot  and  the  killing  of 
members  of  the  Mafia.  I  expressed  the 
opinion  then,  which  has  since  been  confirmed, 
that  the  credit  of  that  matter  belonged  to 
President  Harrison,  rather  than  to  Mr.  Blaine. 
It  is  hard  for  an  Englishman  to  understand 
that  the  President  is  in  the  habit  of  taking  a 
personal  hand  in  the  management  of  inter- 
national affairs;  that  he  is  his  own  Prime 
Minister,  and  that  his  Cabinet  officers,  whom 
he  appoints  and  discharges  at  pleasure,  are 
his  under-secretaries. 

Speaking  of  the  riot  at  New  Orleans,  Lord 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  9 

Coleridge  said  that  the  respect  for  law  which 
is  ingrained  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  character 
sometimes  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  great 
emergencies ;  that  there  were  times  when  the 
swift  methods  of  Judge  Lynch  became  necessa- 
ry in  a  community  where  crime  is  influential 
and  powerful  enough  to  debauch  or  intimidate 
courts  or  juries.  This  language,  from  the 
Lord  Chief-Justice  of  England,  while  he  was 
assuming  the  wig  and  gown,  surprised  me. 
Lord  Coleridge  was  Attorney-General  in  the 
Gladstone  Ministry  before  he  went  upon  the 
Bench,  and  will  be  remembered  for  the  ability 
and  success  with  which  he  prosecuted  the 
Tichborne  claimant.  Speaking  of  Lord  Cole- 
ridge's cross-examination  of  the  Tichborne 
claimant  Lord  Russell  says,  in  the  reminis- 
cences from  which  I  have  already  quoted, 
"For  my  own  part,  I  thought  it  and  still 
think  it  the  best  thing  he  ever  did.  It  was  not 
a  cross-examination,  calculated,  nor  should  I 
think  even  intended,  for  immediate  effect.  It 
was  not  like  the  brilliant  cross-examination  of 
the  witness  Baigent  by  Mr.  Hawkins  (now 
Mr.  Justice  Hawkins),  in  which  the  observer 
could  follow  the  point  and  object,  question  by 


lo  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

question,  but  it  was  one,  the  full  force  and 
effect  of  which  could  only  be  appreciated 
when  the  facts,  as  they  ultimately  appeared 
in  the  defendant's  case,  were  finally  disclosed. 
When  indeed  the  subsequent  prosecution  for 
perjury  took  place,  it  was  then  seen  how  thor- 
ough and  searching  that  cross-examination  had 
been;  how,  in  effect,  if  I  may  use  a  fox-hunt- 
ing metaphor,  all  the  earths  had  been  effectu- 
ally stopped." 

Lord  Coleridge  gave  this  incident  in  his  par- 
liamentary career.  A  critical  question  was  up 
one  night,  in  the  Commons,  and  it  was  feared 
that  a  division  would  come  before  the  Liberals 
could  be  brought  in  from  the  clubs.  Gladstone 
requested  him  to  speak  against  time  while  the 
''whips"  were  out,  and  to  talk  nonsense,  if 
nothing  else,  for  an  hour.  He  obeyed  his  chief 
and  when  his  task  was  done  Mr.  Lowe  took  the 
floor  and  held  it  until  the  Government  benches 
were  full  and  the  Government  was  safe. 

When  the  Secretary  had  adjusted  the  robe 
and  wig,  his  Lordship  asked  me  what  I 
thought  of  the  enormous  tail  to  his  gown. 
"  This  tail  I  am  entitled  to  wear  as  a  mark  of 
distinction,"  said  he,  as  he  gathered  it  in  his 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  ii 

hand  and  led  the  way  to  the  court  room, 
where  he  had  an  officer  bring  me  a  chair, 
which  was  placed  beside  him.  The  jury — a 
special  London  jury — was  in  the  box.  The 
oath  was  administered,  the  book  kissed,  and 
Sir  Charles  Russell  rose  and  addressed  the 
jury  from  an  elaborate  brief.  The  case  was 
North  vs.  Stopes.  It  grew  out  of  the  sub- 
scription and  sale  of  some  corporation  stock. 
"Sir  Charles,"  said  his  Lordship  to  me,  "is 
to-day  the  greatest  lawyer  at  the  English 
bar."  He  then  handed  me  a  slip  with  the 
names  of  counsel — Sir  Charles  Russell,  Q. 
C;  Mr.  Home  Payne,  Q.  C,  and  Mr.  Mc- 
Intyre,  for  plaintiff;  Mr.  Finlay,  Q.  C,  Mr. 
Candy,  Q.  C,  and  Mr.  Duke,  for  the  defend- 
ant. The  interests  involved  were  large,  and 
the  jury  was  made  up  of  business  men  of  the 
best  rank.  Sir  Charles's  opening  statement 
showed  the  most  perfect  familiarity  with  the 
case,  and,  before  he  had  finished,  it  seemed 
certain  that  he  would  win.  Sir  Charles,  at 
one  time,  manifested  a  little  impatience  or 
petulance,  if  that  is  not  too  strong  a  word,  at 
the  well-intentioned  though  rdal  apropos  inter- 
ruption of  his  junior  who  twitched  his  gown  to 


12  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

remind  him  of  some  point  which  he  may  have 
neglected  to  present.  A  quick  backhanded 
gesture  was  the  rather  discourteous  response 
he  made  to  the  proposed  suggestion.  I  was 
surprised  to  see  him  leave  the  court  room  as 
soon  as  he  was  through,  supposing  that,  be- 
ing senior  counsel,  he  would  conduct  the  ex- 
amination of  the  witnesses.  I  was  informed, 
however,  that  courtesy  required  that  the 
senior  should  absent  himself  while  his  junior 
examined  the  plaintiff,  who  was  the  first  wit- 
ness. While  this  examination  was  in  progress 
Sir  Charles  Russell  could  step  across  the  hall 
and  argue  another  case  and  earn  a  fat  fee. 
But  all  of  his  fees  were  large,  his  annual  in- 
come from  his  practice  being,  as  I  was  in- 
formed, in  excess  of  $200,000.  He  is  cer- 
tainly a  great  lawyer,  and  has  now  succeeded 
Coleridge  as  Lord  Chief-Justice.  With  his 
wig  on.  Sir  Charles  bears  a  resemblance  to 
the  portraits  of  Washington.  He  talks  good 
American  English,  free  from  any  trace  of  the 
New  England  or  Southern  peculiarities;  free, 
also,  from  all  signs  of  cockney  ism  or  the 
fashionable  hesitancy  of  speech  so  much 
affected  by  the  peers  and  other  English  speak- 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  13 

ers  and    a  few  Anglomaniacs    in  and  about 
New  York. 

While  the  plaintiff  was  testifying,  the  Chief- 
Justice  took  careful  notes  of  the  principal 
points,  and  when  there  was  a  pause  to  allow 
him  to  finish  a  sentence,  instead  of  the  ordi- 
nary "  go  on,"  or  **  proceed,"  he  would  say 
**  yes,"  with  a  rising  inflection,  and  the  wit- 
ness would  resume.  The  business  went  for- 
ward rapidly,  but  with  perfect  order  and  dig- 
nity. During  the  examination  of  Mr.  North 
an  incident  occurred  which  caused  some  mer- 
riment and  brought  to  mind  the  ludicrous 
story  of  Dickens's  about  the  red-faced  judge 
who  presided  at  the  trial  of  the  case  of  Bar- 
dell  vs.  Pickwick,  in  which  Mr.  Winkle  vainly 
tried  to  persuade  the  judge  that  his  name 
was  plain  Nathaniel,  instead  of  Daniel  Na- 
thaniel, as  the  judge  had  it  in  his  notes.  In 
computing  the  number  of  shares  of  stock  sub- 
scribed, the  total  was  put  at  1,715,  divided 
between  A,  B  and  C.  The  Chief-Justice 
omitted  one  item,  and  his  footing  did  not 
agree  with  that  of  the  counsel;  but,  being 
down  in  the  judge's  notes,  it  was  conclusive 
until  one  of  the  counsel  came  to  the  relief  of 


14  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

the  court  and  in  a  bland  way  pointed  out  the 
omission. 

I  noticed  during  the  progress  of  the  case 
that  when  a  paper  was  produced  in  evidence, 
it  was  not  allowed  to  be  read  until  a  revenue 
officer  in  attendance  inspected  it  to  see  if  it  re- 
quired a  stamp,  and  if  the  proper  stamp  had 
been  affixed  and  canceled.  The  rule  for  a 
time  was  that  an  unstamped  instrument  was 
absolutely  void.*  Now  it  is  held  that  no 
right  can  be  asserted  under  a  paper  requiring 
a  stamp  until  the  stamp  is  affixed.  Penalties 
are  enforced  for  the  willful  omission  to  stamp 
a  writing  which  the  law  requires  to  be 
stamped.  After  the  plaintiff's  examination 
was  finished,  there  v/as  an  adjournment  for 
half  an  hour  for  luncheon  in  the  room  of  the 
Chief-Justice,  where  the  standard  English 
chops,  peas,  potatoes  and  claret  were  served. 
His  Lordship,  rising  to  go,  said:  "You 
will  see  now  how  soon  I  shall  dispose  of  that 
case .  It  rests  almost  wholly  upon  the  documen- 
tary   proofs,    introduced   in    connection  with 


*Such  was  th^'  rule  in  the  courts  of  the  United 
States  when  our  revenue  laws  first  required  stamps  to 
be  affixed  to  deeds  and  other  written  instruments. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  15 

plaintiff's  testimony,  and  the  lawyers  on  both 
sides  know  what  I  am  going  to  say  to  the  jury." 
Just  then  there  was  a  tap  at  the  door,  and  a 
baihff  presented  himself  with  a  message,  say- 
ing if  his  Lordship  would  wait  a  few  minutes 
the  case  would  be  settled.  Court  convened 
soon  after,  and  the  jury  was  discharged,  the 
judge  saying  to  counsel,  "  Do  not  forget  the 
honorarium,  gentlemen."  This  honorarium 
was  a  guinea  for  each  juror,  the  customary 
fee.  His  Lordship  expressed  the  opinion 
that  it  would  be  better  to  adopt  our  system 
of  paying  jurors  from  the  public  treasury. 

He  told  me  a  story  of  a  successful  cross- 
examination  of  a  rascal  who  was  trying  to 
prove  a  forged  will.  Lord  Coleridge  was 
a  junior  in  the  case,  with  Mr.  Rowley,  Q.  C, 
senior.  A  man  of  fortune  had  bequeathed 
the  bulk  of  his  estate  to  a  niece  and  a  nephew. 
After  his  death  a  new  will  turned  up,  pur- 
porting to  have  been  made  at  Bath,  where 
the  testator  had  gone  a  short  time  before 
his  death.  The  scoundrel  who  had  a  hand 
in  fabricating  the  will  appeared  as  a  wit- 
ness, and  told  a  story  of  great  plausibility 
about  how  the  instructions  were  given  by  the 


i6  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

testator,  and  how  he  had  followed  these  in- 
structions in  preparing  the  will.  Rowley, 
after  working  an  hour  or  two,  was  discour- 
aged, and  said  to  his  junior,  "  How  can  I 
break  that  rascal  down?  He  is  lying  and  I 
know  it,  but  he  is  imposing  on  the  court  and 
the  jury."  He  resumed  his  questions,  how- 
ever, and  the  witness  began  to  fidget,  and 
show  signs  of  weakness ;  he  fumbled  in  his 
waistcoat  pocket  and  pulled  out  a  slip  of 
paper,  which  he  quickly  put  back  after  glanc- 
ing at  it.  Rowley  caught  him  and  said, 
"Let  me  have  that  paper." 

"No,  I  won't,"  said  the  witness.  "I 
haven't  used  it,  and  you  have  no  right 
to  it." 

"Will  you  swear,  sir,"  said  the  lawyer, 
"that  it  does  not  contain  some  memoranda 
pertaining  to  this  case?  " 

The  fellow  was  confused,  counsel  on  the 
other  side  protested,  the  jurors  became  curi- 
ous, and  finally  the  paper  was  put  in  the 
hands  of  the  cross-examiner.  There  were 
some  words  on  it  which  did  not  seem  to  be 
coherent,  but  the  wily  lawyer,  assuming  to 
understand  more  than  he  really  did,  began  to 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  17 

prod  the  witness,  who  was  soon  freely  per- 
spiring and  in  a  high  state  of  excitement. 
Counsel  on  the  other  side  saw  their  case 
going  to  pieces,  and  arose  and  told  the  court 
they  were  satisfied  that  the  witness  was  a  liar 
and  that  the  will  was  forged. 

I  reminded  him  of  the  case  mentioned  by 
Frederick  W.  Robertson,  of  Brighton,  which 
occurred  at  the  Assizes,  in  which  a  rascal  was 
on  trial  for  cheating  at  cards.  Prosecutor 
and  witness  had  failed  to  discover  the  cheat's 
trick.  Jervis,  the  presiding  judge,  took  the 
pack  of  cards  in  his  hand  and  gave  them  to 
the  foreman  of  the  jury  to  shuffle,  saying  he 
could  pick  out  and  name  any  card  in  the  pack 
without  facing  them.  He  did  it,  and  pointed 
out  a  marking  which  had  escaped  the  notice 
of  everybody  till  then.  Lord  Coleridge  re- 
membered the  case  and  said  that  Jervis  had 
tried  a  card-sharp  a  few  days  before  at  another 
place,  on  the  circuit,  when  he  had  acquired 
the  knowledge  that  enabled  him  to  detect  the 
cheat. 

The  will  case  reminds  me  of  the  success  of 
Alexander  Hamilton  in  cross-examining  a 
witness  named  Croucher.  who  was  testifying 


1 8  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

against  Hamilton's  client,  who  was  on  trial 
for  murder.  It  was  dark  and  candles  were 
brought  into  the  court  room.  Before  taking 
the  witness  in  hand  Hamilton  placed  a  lighted 
candle  on  each  side  of  the  witness's  face  and 
asked  the  jury  to  look  in  the  eyes  of  the  wit- 
ness while  he  testified.  Counsel  on  the  other 
side  protested,  but  Mr.  Hamilton  told  the 
court  that  in  a  short  time  it  would  appear 
who  the  real  murderer  was.  He  then  began 
his  cross-examination,  and  it  was  not  long 
before  Croucher  was  utterly  broken  down  and 
the  prosecution  abandoned  the  case.  The 
witness  fled  to  England,  where  he  committed 
some  other  crime,  for  which  he  was  executed. 
The  ability  to  successfully  conduct  a  cross- 
examination  of  an  intelligent  and  prejudiced 
or  rascally  witness  is  rare.  Some  lawyers  go 
at  a  witness  as  a  savage  goes  at  his  enemy, 
with  a  knotted  club,  relying  upon  the  mere 
brute  force  of  browbeating.  This  method  of 
attack  is  faulty  in  theory  and  usually  results 
in  disaster  to  the  lawyer.  Quiet  self-posses- 
sion, patient  perseverance,  fairness  to  the  wit- 
ness, quick  perception,  good  temper,  or  at 
least  no  manifestation  of  ill-temper;  these  are 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  19 

the  qualities  which  enable  the  great  lawyer  to 
expose  one  who  is  trying  to  palm  off  upon  a 
jury  a  made-up  story. 


20  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 


CHAPTER  n. 

The  invitation  to  dine  with  Lady  and  Lord 
Coleridge  was  for  8  o'clock.  Within  five 
or  ten  minutes  of  the  time  named  the  guests 
were  assembled,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  who  did  not  arrive  until  the 
others  were  seated.  He  explained  that  he 
was  kept  at  the  House  of  Lords,  where  there 
was  a  protracted  discussion  of  the  free  edu- 
cation bill,  the  Duke  of  Argyll  holding  the 
floor  till  a  late  hour.  Among  others  present 
there  were  Mr.  Russell,  whose  sketch  of  Glad- 
stone had  just  been  published  ;  Mr.  Harrison, 
a  brother  of  Frederic  Harrison;  Mrs.  Eleanor 
Woodehouse,  daughter  of  Matthew  Arnold, 
whose  husband  is  a  son  of  Earl  Kimberly, 
formerly  Irish  Secretary  in  the  Gladstone 
Ministry,  and  now  a  member  of  Lord  Rose- 
bery's  Cabinet;    Mrs.   Bigham,   wife  of   Mr. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  21 

Bigham,  Q.  C,  who  stands  with  Sir  Charles 
Russell  in  the  front  rank  of  England's  great 
lawyers;  Lady  Denison,  Miss  Baring  Law- 
ford,  sister  of  Lady  Coleridge,  and  others, 
whose  names  I  do  not  recall. 

It  might  go  without  saying  that  a  London 
dinner  party  of  English  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
made  up  by  Lady  and  Lord  Coleridge,  would 
be  fairly  typical  of  the  intellectual  aristocracy 
as  opposed  to  the  horse-racing,  prize-fighting 
and  baccarat  nobility,  who  have  inherited 
social  station  instead  of  winning  it.  Schop- 
enauer  was  in  the  habit  of  dining  at  a  cafe 
which  was  much  frequented  by  some  scions 
of  the  English  nobility.  It  was  noticed  that 
whenever  the  philosopher  of  pessimism  took 
his  seat  he  placed  a  gold  piece  on  the  corner 
of  the  table.  After  several  days  this  conduct 
excited  curiosity,  and  some  one  was  bold 
enough  to  ask  Schopenauer  what  it  meant. 
"Why,"  said  he,  "I  have  made  a  wager  with 
myself — that  whenever  I  hear  those  young 
Englishmen  over  there  talk  on  any  subject  but 
dogs,  horses  and  women,  I  will  give  that 
money  to  some  charitable  institution.     From 


22  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

what  I  have  seen  and  heard,  however,  I  ex- 
pect to  keep  my  gold  a  long  while." 

Well,  Lady  Coleridge's  company  did  not 
indulge  in  that  sort  of  talk.  Here  let  me 
mention  a  bit  of  Philistinism  which  cropped 
out  in  a  recent  article  on  London  society  in 
one  of  our  leading  magazines.  The  article 
told  of  an  American  who  was  shocked  at 
what  he  regarded  as  the  ill-breeding  of  a  Lon- 
don host  or  hostess  at  whose  house  he  was 
an  invited  guest.  He  doubtless  expected  to 
have  a  jolly,  effusive,  hand-shaking  and  back- 
slapping  reception,  something  of  the  pluto- 
cratic-cheerful-vulgarity style  of  New  York. 
He  was  amazed,  after  threading  his  way 
through  the  lines  of  ushers  into  the  drawing- 
room,  to  discover  that  he  was  left  alone  to 
make  his  way,  as  best  he  could  in  a  strange 
company,  without  a  formal  introduction  to 
the  guests.  So  he  made  a  wall  flower  of 
himself,  and  wrote  himself  down  an  ass  in  an 
ill-natured  criticism  of  what  is  certainly  one 
of  the  greatest  charms  of  well-bred  society. 
Persons  invited  to  such  a  company  are  vouched 
for  by  the  host  and  are  expected   to   make 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  23 

themselves  agreeable  to  one  another  without 
preliminary  introductions. 

You  address  the  lady  or  gentleman  who 
happens  to  be  next  to  you  at  the  table  or  in 
the  drawing-room,  with  the  freedom  of  an 
acquaintance.  If  the  conversation  which  en- 
sues is  agreeable,  the  chance  meeting  may 
lead  to  a  familiar  interchange  of  viev/s,  and 
may  possibly  ripen  into  a  lasting  friendship. 
This  is  immeasurably  better  than  the  awkward 
formality  which  debars  conversation  among 
guests  who  have  not  been  "introduced." 
Surely,  we  may  learn  from  others  something 
of  the  social  amenities  and  equities,  and  some 
of  the  small,  sweet  courtesies  of  life  which 
are  so  essential  to  right  living. 

Our  amiable  and  candid  critic,  Mr.  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  gives  us  great  praise.  He 
says  our  institutions  fit  us  like  a  well-made 
suit  of  clothes,  our  women  are  charming,  we 
have  successfully  solved  the  political  problem, 
we  have  solved  the  social  problem  also  and 
have  established  the  principle  of  equality,  but 
he  regrets  to  say  that  we  have  not  solved  the 
"human  problem  "—there  is  a  lack  of  ur- 
banity in  the  newspaper  style  of  writing,  a 


24  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

tendency  toward  the  penny-dreadful  manner, 
the  flippant  funny  man  is  too  much  in  evi- 
dence, there  is  something  bordering  on  indeh- 
cacy  in  the  way  in  which  our  leading  news- 
papers discuss  the  private  and  family  affairs 
of  public  men.  When  our  editors  tell  us 
that  all  this  is  because  our  people  like  it  and 
will  have  it  so,  it  is  an  open  confession  that 
Mr.  Arnold's  criticism  is  just.  Is  it  not  quite 
likely  that  our  blood  kin  of  the  tight  little 
island  have  not  been  fooling  away  their  time 
for  a  thousand  years,  and  that  they  really 
know  how  to  do  some  things  quite  as  well  as 
ourselves? 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  ('  25 


CHAPTER  IIL 

Seeing  Matthew  Arnold's  daughter  a  guest 
at  Lord  Coleridge's  recalled  the  remark  attrib- 
uted to  Lord  Coleridge  when  Mr,  Arnold  was 
lecturing  in  America,  that  Mr.  Arnold  was 
the  greatest  living  Englishman.  I  mentioned 
it  to  him,  and  he  said  that  he  had  not  used 
the  word  "greatest,"  but  had  called  Mf, 
Arnold  the  most  "distinguished"  living 
Englishman,  in  the  sense  that  he  was  unique 
and  set  apart  from  his  countrymen  by  such 
marked  peculiarities  of  style  in  prose  and 
poetry,  by  his  great  scholarship,  his  broad  ^ 
sympathies,  and  his  unerring  and  grateful  ap- 
preciation of  what  was  best  in  literature,  an- 
cient and  modern.  Mr.  Arnold  and  Lord 
Coleridge,  the  one  from  Rugby  and  the  other 
from  Eton,  were  fellow-students  at  Balliol 
College,    Oxford.       Mr.    Justice    Coleridge, 


26  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Lord  Coleridge's  father,  was  one  of  the  most 
intimate  friends  of  Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby,  a 
fact  which  is  well  attested  by  the  correspond- 
ence published  in  Dean  Stanley's  life  of  Dr. 
Arnold.  When  Dean  Stanley  was  prepar- 
ing this  life  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge  was  re- 
quested by  Mrs.  Arnold  to  prepare  and  de- 
liver to  her  husband's  biographer  such 
recollections  as  he  had  of  Arnold's  career 
as  an  undergraduate  at  Oxford.  He  closes 
his  sketch  with  these  words  :  * '  Within  the 
peaceful  walls  of  Corpus  I  made  friends,  of 
whom  all  are  spared  me  but  Arnold — he  has 
fallen  asleep — but  the  bond  there  formed, 
which  the  lapse  of  years  and  our  differing  walks 
in  life  did  not  unloosen,  and  which  strong 
opposition  of  opinions  only  rendered  more  in- 
timate, though  interrupted  in  time  I  feel  not 
to  be  broken — may  I  venture  without  unsea- 
sonable solemnity  to  express  the  firm  trust 
that  it  will  endure  forever  in  eternity?"  This 
bond  of  friendship  was  transmitted  to  their 
more  distinguished  sons.  It  was  pleasant  to 
hear  Lord  Coleridge  speak  feelingly  and  with 
generous  praise  of  his  dead  friend.  At  the 
foot  of    the   stairway  in   the  Coleridge  man- 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  /   27  J 

sion  was  a  fine  bust  of   Matthew  Arnold,  a 
copy  of  one  which  has  been  placed  in  West- 
minster   Abbey,    Lord    Coleridge   being  the 
orator  who  pronounced  the  panegyric  at  the 
public  ceremony.*    The  two  men  were  about 
the  same  age,  and  always  addressed  one  an- 
other with  the  familiarity  of  boys.   Arnold  was 
always  ' '  Matt ' '  to  Coleridge.    ' '  Was  Mr.  Ar- 
nold true   to  his  teachings   as   the  apostle  of 
the  gospel  of  sweetness  and  light  ?"     '*  Per- 
fectly and  always,"  was  Lord  Coleridge's  an- 
swer.     He  told  me  that  Arnold's  ideal  of  a^ 
happy   home  was  realized   in  his   cottage  atf 
Cobham,  in  Surrey,  where  his  widow  still  re-\ 
sides.     There  were  his  family,  his  books  and  / 
his  dogs.   He  was  forever  weeding  his  library 
shelves   and  getting  rid  of  cumbersome  and 
useless  stuff. 

He  and  Coleridge  came  under  the  spell  of 
Newman's  influence  at  Oxford,  and  the 
friendship  there  established  was  never  broken 
or  weakened  by  Newman's  forsaking  Angli- 
canism and  going  to  Rome.  "A  most  faith- 
ful likeness,"  as  Lord  Coleridge  called  it,  of 
the  Cardinal,  made  but  a  few  months  before 


*This  address  is  published  in  full  in  the  Appendix, 


28  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

his  death,  hung  on  the  wall  in  Coleridge's 
library.  It  is  a  saintly  face.  Near  it  was  a 
splendid  likeness  of  his  Lordship,  made  by 
his  first  wife,  who  was  an  accomplished  ar- 
tist. In  his  poem  on  Rugby  Chapel,  Matthew 
Arnold  speaks  with  triumphant  faith,  or  shall 
I  say  hope,  rather,  of  there  being  a  place 
where  "that  strength,  zealous,,  beneficent, 
firm,"  of  his  father  shall  find  occupation  with 
the  immortals  in  *  *  the  labor  house  vast  of  be- 
ing." And  now  he  is  of  them  also,  with 
his  father,  and  the  two  Coleridges,  and  New- 
man, and  Professor  Jowett,  the  master  of 
Balliol,  who  went  before  Coleridge — the  last 
one — only  a  few  months  ago.  Of  Prof. 
Jowett's  death  Lord  Coleridge  wrote  me  in 
October,  1893,  saying:  "  The  death  of  the 
master  of  Balliol  has  hit  me  very  hard.  He 
was  the  best  and  almost  the  oldest  of  my  sur- 
viving friends,  and  his  death  has  made  my 
world  much  poorer  and  much  smaller.  He 
was  a  really  great  man,  a  very  good  one,  and 
one  of  the  tenderest,  most  loyal  and  truest  of 
friends." 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  29 


CHAPTER  IV. 

I  WAS  interested  to  know  something  of  Mr. 
Arnold's  daily  life,  and  I  count  it  no  infrac- 
tion of  the  rules  of  hospitality  or  propriety  to 
give  some  facts  which  I  learned  from  Mrs. 
Woodehouse,  at  dinner  that  day.  Her  father 
was  an  incessant  reader,  and  always  read 
with  pen  in  hand,  making  copious  notes.  He 
was  an  early  riser,  and  worked  in  his  library 
v/ithout  refreshment  until  the  breakfast 
hour  at  9  o'clock.  After  breakfast  he  re- 
sumed his  work,  and  continued  it  until  2  or 
3  o'clock,  when  he  was  ready  for  a  long 
ramble  of  an  hour  or  two,  in  company  with 
his  daughter,  over  the  Surrey  hills.  He  was 
a  good  shot,  and  kept  dogs,  which  he  always 
took  with  him  in  these  excursions. 

When  I  had  the  honor  of  entertaining  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Arnold  at   Indianapolis,  during  his 


30  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

lecture  tour  in  1883,  a  partnership  dog, 
owned  or  claimed  by  Myron  Reed  and  me, 
presented  himself  at  the  hall  door  and  insisted 
upon  coming  in  with  the  guests.  It  was  a 
sleety  February  day,  and  I  was  on  the  point 
of  shutting  the  door  against  **  John,"  but 
Mr.  Arnold  said,  "Let  John  come  in,"  as 
he  stooped  and  patted  him  on  the  head. 
John  recognized  him  by  some  sort  of  free- 
masonry, and  seemed  to  understand  that  he 
was  indebted  to  his  new  friend  for  the  privi- 
lege of  curling  up  on  the  rug  that  evening,  in 
the  midst  of  good  company,  instead  of  stay- 
ing in  his  lonesome  kennel. 

John  was  a  stray,  and,  so  far  as  we  could 
learn,  an  unregistered  pointer,  which  had 
been  abandoned  by  some  pot-hunter  who  had 
worn  him  out  during  the  shooting  season.  He 
was  found  in  my  outhouse,  rheumatic  and 
emaciated,  and  by  virtue  of  starvation  and  ill 
treatment  had  become  a  pessimistic  "  tramp." 
At  first  he  snarled  when  food  was  offered  to 
him,  but  kindness  brought  him  around  at  last, 
and  in  a  few  months  he  became  a  favorite 
with  all  the  children  in  the  neighborhood. 
If    the    night  were   cold  he  would  leave  his 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  31 

kennel  and  cross  the  street  to  Reed's 
home,  and  if  a  light  were  burning  in  the 
preacher's  library,  John  would  give  one 
peremptory  knock  at  the  door,  and,  being 
admitted,  he  would  stretch  himself  before  the 
fire,  with  his  nose  on  his  paws,  and  watch  the 
preacher  while  he  was  writing  one  of  his  in- 
imitable sermons,  or,  if  in  the  mood,  reading 
the  very  latest  novel.  Reed  said  he  always 
knew  when  our  family  had  gone  to  bed  by 
John's  signal  at  his  door.  John  went  to 
Denver  with  the  preacher  and  soon  died. 

One  of  the  most  pathetic  things  I  ever 
read  was  Reed's  letter  describing  the  last 
hours  of  our  old  friend  and  the  sadness  of  the 
household  at  the  time.  He  said  he  then  re- 
solved he  would  have  no  more  dogs  about 
the  house,  but  one  day  he  came  home  and 
found  his  little  daughter  fondling  an  ill-fav- 
ored puppy  with  "a  Websterian  head,  thick 
tail  and  enormous  feet."  He  ordered  it  out 
of  the  house,  but  the  child  pleaded  for  her 
pet  and  said  she  had  taken  it  from  a  boy  who 
was  about  to  "drown  him  in  the  ^^/^  water." 
That  settled  it,  and  puppy  became  a  member 
of  the  family.      If  the  dog  is  living  yet  you 


32  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

may  be  sure  that  he  will  stay  by  his  friend 
Myron — call  him  what  you  will,  Populist, 
Communist  or  Anarchist.  It  was  Ouida,  I 
think,  who  said  that  the  more  she  saw  of  men 
the  better  she  liked  dogs.  There  is  something 
lacking  in  the  make-up  of  a  man  who  does 
not  take  kindly  to  an  affectionate  dog.  Reed 
told  me  once  he  doubted  the  power  of  divine 
grace  to  save  one  of  the  elect,  a  deacon  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  because  he  had 
poisoned  two  beautiful  setters  belonging  to  a 
neighbor  just  before  going  to  prayer-meet- 
ing. 

I  told  Mrs.  Woodehouse  that  her  father's 
many  friends  would  look  with  interest  to  the 
publication  of  a  biography,  but  she  answered  . 
that  it  would  not  be  according  to  her  father's 
wish  if  his  life  were  written.  He  had  seen  so 
many  caricatures  under  the  guise  of  biog- 
raphies that  he  preferred  to  rest  his  claims  for 
fame  and  usefulness  on  what  he  had  written 
and  published.  It  is  strange  to  many  that 
Mr.  Arnold  wrote  very  little  poetry,  during 
the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life,  a  period  dur- 
ing which,  in  other  lines  of  literary  work,  he 
was  so  productive.      His  family  and  friends 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  33 

say  that  his  standard  was  so  high  and  his 
critical  judgment  so  severe  that  he  preferred 
to  write  none,  rather  than  to  produce  what 
might  be  classed  as  unsound  or  inferior.  He 
was  not  much  of  a  letter  writer,  and  was  in' 
the  habit  of  using  his  daughter  as  his  amanu-^i 
ensis. 

Notwithstanding  Mr.  Arnold's  disinclina- 
tion to  have  his  life  written,  it  would  surely 
be  very  grateful  to  the  many  and  certainly 
increasing  number  of  the  admirers  of  his  writ- 
ings to  know  as  much  as  possible  of  the  man 
who  has  exercised  such  a  powerful  formative 
influence  upon  the  thought  of  the  present 
generation.  I  have  heard  also  that  Mr.  Ar-\ 
nold  was  in  the  habit  of  destroying  letters  I 
written  to  him.  In  this  he  was  like  Sydney 
Smith,  who  wrote  to  the  daughter  of  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,  when  she,  in  collecting 
materials  for  her  father's  biography,  asked 
him  for  letters,  that  he  had  made  it  a  rule  to 
promptly  destroy  every  letter  he  received 
from  any  human  being.  This  was  a  great 
mistake.  The  world  would  know  but  one 
side,  and  that  not  always  the  best,  of  some  of 

3 


34  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

its  greatest  men,  were  It  not  for  the  charming 
letters  they  wrote.  Where  is  there  more  de- 
Hghtful  reading  than  the  letters  of  Cowper, 
Swift,  Heine,  Carlyle,  Emerson,  Motley,  Dr. 
Arnold,  and  others  that  might  be  named? 
Even  the  old  bear,  Dr.  Johnson,  shows  the 
velvet  on  his  paws  in  the  two  volumes  of  his 
letters  to  Mrs.  Thrale  and  others. 

When  the  ladies  retired  and  the  gentlemen 
gathered  about  their  host  at  the  top  of  the 
table,  where  the  port  was  served,  a  remark  of 
Lord  Coleridge  led  to  a  conversation  about 
the  American  judiciary.  The  Lord  Chancel- 
lor looks  upon  the  short  tenures  of  our  state 
judges  and  their  election  by  a  popular  vote  as 
an  abomination,  and  in  this  he  is  probably  in 
line  with  the  current  opinion  among  thought- 
ful Americans. 

There  is  something  shocking  in  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  candidate  for  a  place  upon  the 
Bench  going  about  with  the  ward  workers  and 
heelers  and  counseling  with  the  local  bosses 
concerning  the  best  method  of  fixing  things  at 
the  primary,  and  taking  an  active  part  in  all 
the  questionable  proceedings  which  go  by  the 
name  of  practical  politics.    How  often  have  we 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  35 

seen  judges  juggling  with  their  consciences 
in  their  efforts  to  do  what  they  believed  to  be 
right  without  offending  some  active  party  work- 
ers who  claimed  to  have  fixed  the  delegates 
in  the  convention  for  them,  and  thus  secured 
their  nomination  for  the  places  they  hold. 

"See,"  said  the  Lord  Chancellor,  "the 
contrast  between  your  federal  judges,  who 
are  appointed  and  have  a  life  tenure,  and 
your  judges  who  are  elected,  and  whose  ten- 
ure depends  upon  the  whim  of  party  man- 
agers." When  the  mails  are  stopped  ;  when 
business  is  paralyzed ;  when  many  good  peo- 
ple fear  that  we  are  on  the  verge  of  anarchy 
and  that  popular  government  is  a  failure,  we 
turn  to  the  federal  judiciary  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  law  and  order,  and  for  the  protection 
of  life  and  property,* 

Of  many  things  said  there  about  English 

*This  was  written  during  the  strike  of  1894,  when, 
at  the  command  of  Debs,  the  railway  system  of  the 
West  was  tied  up.  Judge  Woods,  the  United  States 
Circuit  Judge  of  the  Seventh  Circuit,  issued  his  injunc- 
tion commanding  Debs  and  his  associates  to  stop  in- 
terfering with  the  operation  of  the  railways.  For  dis- 
obeying this  order  Debs  has  been  tried  for  contempt  of 
court  and  sentenced  to  eighteen  months  imprisonment. 
The  prompt  action  of  Judge  Woods  ended  the  strike. 


2,6  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

politicians  and  English  politics,  it  is  not  for 
me  to  speak;  only  let  me  say  that  the  En- 
glish women  are  keenly  alive  to  all  public 
questions,  and  discuss  them  with  a  relish  and 
vigor  which  would  surprise  those  who  imagine 
that  these  high-bred  ladies  are  wholly  ab- 
sorbed in  frivolous  occupations. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  37 


CHAPTER  V. 

A  DAY  or  two  after  the  dinner  at  Lord  Cole- 
ridge's London  mansion  I  received  the  fol- 
lowing letter  : 

Star  and  Garter  Hotel,     } 
Richmond,  19th  July,  1891  (Surrey). j* 

My  Dear  Sir — I  mentioned  to  you  that  we  should 
be  at  Warwick  on  Saturday  next  and  at  Birmingham 
the  Wednesday  following — on  the  circuit.  If  you 
like  to  see  something  of  our  circuit  ways  and  customs 
I  shall  be  glad  to  be  your  guide  and  host.  I  fear  the 
capacity  of  the  lodgings  will  not  allow  me  to  offer  you 
bed,  but  we  shall  be  delighted  to  give  you  board,  and 
there  are  very  decent  inns,  both  at  Warwick  and 
Birmingham.  Warwick  is  an  exceptionally  beautiful 
and  interesting  place — full  of  fine  things,  especially 
the  castle — and  you  will  be  in  the  very  midst  of  Shaks- 
pere's  country,  whose  name  I  spell  as  above,  but  not 
on  the  road  to  spell  it  Bacon.  I  have  come  here  to  rest 
for  the  Sunday,  and  to-morrow  I  have  to  go  into  Kent 
to  have  a  "  view  "  in  a  curious  and  important  case  be- 
ing tried  before  me  without  a  jury.  I  leave  London 
on  Wednesday,  but  a  line  to  i  Sussex  Square  will 
always  find  me.     Sincerely  yours,  Coleridge. 

W.  P.  Fishback,  Esq. 


38  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Nothing  could  be  more  acceptable  to  an 
American  lawyer  visiting  England  than  such 
an  invitation,  and  I  promptly  answered  that 
I  would  be  at  Warwick  at  the  opening  of  the 
Assizes.  The  judge  on  the  circuit  is  fur- 
nished with  a  house  for  himself  and  family  to 
live  in  during  the  sessions,  and  as  Lady  Cole- 
ridge, her  brother  and  sister  and  her  friend, 
a  Mrs.  Barrington,  of  Devonshire,  were  on 
the  circuit  with  Lord  Coleridge,  the  house 
was  full.  I  found  comfortable  lodgings  at  the 
Woolpack  Inn,  where  I  got  my  breakfasts, 
taking  luncheon  and  dining  with  Lord  Cole- 
ridge and  family  at  the  Judge's  Lodgings,  as 
it  is  called,  a  substantial  structure  designed 
by  Inigo  Jones. 

The  expense  of  keeping  up  the  judge's 
house  is  borne  by  the  local  authorities  during 
the  Assizes.  By  an  ancient  custom  the  lord 
of  a  neighboring  manor  sends  for  the  table 
of  the  Lord  Chief-Justice,  when  he  is  holding 
the  Assizes,  a  haunch  or  saddle  of  venison, 
and  sometimes  an  entire  carcass.  When  the 
gift  is  received  the  marshal  of  the  Lord  Chief- 
Justice  makes  a  formal  and  official  acknowl- 
edgment, sending  a  simple  "thanks"  if  it  is 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  39 

a  haunch,  "thanks  for  the  handsome  pres- 
ent" if  it  is  a  saddle,  and  "thanks  for  the 
splendid  gift"  if  it  is  the  entire  animal.  It 
was  a  splendid  gift  this  time,  and  the  venison 
was  good  and  well  dressed.  It  sometimes 
happens  that  owing  to  political  differences  or 
personal  dislike  the  donor  and  the  donee  are 
not  good  friends,  not  even  on  speaking  term.s, 
but  this  causes  no  breach  of  the  custom, 
which  has  been  observed  from  a  time  whereof 
the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the  con- 
trary. 

By  another  customx  as  old,  whenever  the 
Lord  Chief-Justice  comes  to  hold  the  Assizes 
In  the  Midland  Circuit,  Balliol  College,  of  the 
University  of  Oxford,  sends  him  a  pair  of 
immaculate  kid  gauntlets,  which  he  wears  at 
the  opening  ceremony. 

Lord  Coleridge  and  family  arrived  at  War- 
wick on  Saturday,  at  6  o'clock  P.  M.,  and  the 
event  was  announced  by  the  ringing  of  church 
bells.  A  corporation  coach,  attended  by  city 
officials  and  preceded  by  trumpeters,  conveyed 
the  city's  guest  to  the  Judge's  Lodgings.  An 
hour  later  I  sent  a  note  to  his  Lordship  advis- 


40  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

ing  him  of  my  presence  and  soon  received 
the  following  answer: 

Judge's  Lodgings. 
Warwick,  26th  July,  1S91. 
My  Dear  Sir — I  am  glad  you  are  here.  I  go  to 
church  in  state  at  11,  which  is  a  piece  of  our  peacock 
life  you  might  perhaps  like  to  see,  I  will  see  that  you 
have  a  place  with  my  marshal  if  you  like  to  come  here 
about  ten  minutes  to  11.  This  afternoon  I  am  engaged, 
but  I  hope  you  will  come  and  dine  here  at  7:45.  Lady 
Coleridge  is  most  anxious  to  thank  you  for  that  beauti- 
ful little  volume  of  poems  [Rilej^'s  "  Old-fashioned 
Roses,"  published  by  Longmans  in  London]  you  sent 
her.  She  would  have  written  yesterday,  but  she  ar- 
rived late  from  London  quite  used  up.  Believe  me  to 
be  yours  very  sincerely,  Coleridge. 

I  arrived  at  the  Judge's  Lodgings  a  few 
minutes  before  1 1  and  found  everything  in 
readiness.  The  chaplain  had  sent  a  large 
basket  of  roses  which  were  beautifully  ar- 
ranged on  a  center  table  in  the  reception 
room.  And  there  was  the  Lord  Chief-Justice, 
arrayed  in  all  the  bravery  of  his  official  tog- 
gery. His  head  was  adorned  v/ith  the  enor- 
mous wig  which  is  never  worn  except  on  state 
occasions  and  when  the  portrait  painter  is  at 
his  work.  He  wore  the  crimson  robe,  with  the 
long  "tail, ' '  and  about  his  neck  was  a  massive 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  41 

gold  chain  which  was  first  bestowed  on 
the  Chief-Justice  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIL 
His  hands  were  encased  in  th€  white  kid 
gauntlets — the  gift  from  BalHol,  his  Lord- 
ship's college  at  Oxford.  It  was  an  impos- 
ing sight  to  see  the  crowds  on  the  streets 
making  way  for  the  trumpeters  who  preceded 
the  corporation  carriage  in  which  the  Lord 
Chief-Justice,  the  mayor  and  the  chaplain 
were  carried  to  St.  Mary's  Church,  where  the 
chaplain  preached  a  short  and  sensible  ser- 
mon from  the  text,  "  Wherefore,  I  was  not 
disobedient  unto  the  heavenly  vision." 

The  building  is  a  pretty  piece  of  architect- 
ure, which  was  designed  by  Sir  Christopher 
Wren,  the  architect  of  St.  Paul's.  The 
church  was  crowded,  and  the  solemn  service 
of  the  English  Church  was  reverently  attended 
to  by  everybody,  from  the  Lord  Chief-Justice 
to  the  "boots"  from  the  inn.  There  is  a 
democracy  in  the  English  churches  which 
might  well  be  copied  in  such  churches  as 
John  Hall's,  on  Fifth  avenue,  New  York, 
where  the  holders  of  the  cushioned  pews 
scowl  at  a  stranger  as  if  he  were  a  Digger  In- 
dian. 


42  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Coming  out  after  the  service,  I  noticed 
some  shelves  in  the  vestibule  which  were 
filled  with  bread.  Lady  Coleridge  informed 
me  that  some  charitable  people  in  the  time  of 
Lord  Leicester  (Amy  Robsart's  husband) 
had,  by  their  wills,  set  apart  a  fund  to  pro- 
vide this  bread  for  the  poor  of  the  parish 
who  have  received  it  every  Sunday  since  then. 

Going  back  to  the  Woolpack  Inn,  after  ser- 
vice, I  found  there  Mrs.  Washington  Gladden 
and  her  daughter,  of  Columbus,  Ohio,  who 
were  staying  over  Sunday  at  Warwick,  while 
Mr.  Gladden  had  gone  off  to  preach  in  a 
neighboring  town,  Leamington,  I  think ;  a  few 
minutes  after,  a  messenger  came  from  Lord 
Coleridge  with  his  private  key  to  the  garden 
and  park  attached  to  the  castle.  This  gave 
me  a  privilege  seldom  enjoyed  by  tourists, 
who  are  usually  excluded  from  the  grounds 
on  Sundays.  Mrs.  Gladden  and  Miss  Glad- 
den accompanied  me  in  an  afternoon  ramble 
under  the  cedars  and  beeches,  and  along  the 
banks  of  the  Avon,  which  flows  under  the 
castle  walls.  Meeting  the  gardener,  he  con- 
ducted us  through  the  graperies  and  fruit 
gardens,  which  showed  the  results  of  careful 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  43 

and  skillful  tending,  and  gave  splendid  prom- 
ise of  profuse  fruitage  for  autumn  and  winter. 
At  the  turning  of  an  alley  we  came  suddenly 
upon  a  gentleman  who  seemed  much  sur- 
prised at  our  presence  there.  With  perfect 
courtesy  he  asked  us  how  we  expected  to  get 
out  of  the  grounds,  which  was,  as  we  con- 
strued it,  a  euphemistic  way  of  saying,  "  how 
did  you  happen  to  get  in  ? "  When  it  was 
explained  that  Lord  Coleridge  had  kindly 
given  to  me  his  private  key,  the  gentleman 
bowed  an  apology,  but  told  us  that  as  the 
family  were  **  in  residence  "  at  the  castle,  he 
would  request  us  not  to  go  inside  of  the  inner 
court,  a  very  proper  request,  which  was 
cheerfully  obeyed.  Nothing  can  be  lovelier 
than  a  bright  July  day  amidst  such  scenes 
and  associations.  But  as  to  all  that  see 
Baedeker  passim.  It  was  late  in  the  after- 
noon when  we  got  back  to  our  inn,  and  I  had 
barely  time  to  dress  for  dinner  at  the  Judge's 
Lodgings  with  Lord  Coleridge  and  his  family. 


44  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 


CHAPTER  VI. 

I  HAD  seen  Lord  Coleridge  presiding  as 
Chief-Justice  in  the  Law  Courts  at  London, 
and  as  host  at  a  dinner  party  at  his  mansion 
in  Sussex  Square.  I  had  also  witnessed  the 
"peacock"  parade  at  church,  of  which  he 
was  the  central  figure,  and  I  was  now  to  have 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  him  and  his  family 
in  a  less  formal  way  at  a  Sunday  dinner. 
Some  correspondent  in  a  letter  recently  pub- 
lished spoke  of  Lord  Coleridge's  beautifully 
modulated  voice,  and  how,  in  cross-examin- 
ing an  unwilling  witness,  he  could  win  him 
over  by  the  sweet  courtesy  of  his  words  and 
manner.  He  had  no  faith  in  the  "bow- 
wow" style  with  which  ignorant  lawyers  at- 
tempt to  browbeat  witnesses  until  the  jury 
and  judge  are  exasperated,  but  took  the 
witness  into  his  confidence,  so  to  speak,  and, 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  45 

maintaining  the  attitude  of  an  honest  and 
earnest  seeker  after  the  truth,  usually  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  a  perfect  disclosure.  This 
voice  of  his  was  a  great  gift,  or  talent,  rather, 
and  the  play  of  it  in  familiar  talk  with  the  mem- 
bers of  his  family  was  pleasant  to  hear.  Without 
abating  one  jot  of  his  dignity,  he  put  every- 
body present  upon  a  level  with  himself,  and 
for  the  time  being  the  Lord  Chief-Justice  disap- 
peared and  the  man  Coleridge  was  manifest, 
though  the  ladies  invariably  addressed  him 
in  a  half  playful  way  as  "Chief." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  of  the  dinner, 
or  of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  set  forth  and 
served.  The  English  dinner  is  one  of  the 
great  triumphs  of  social  life,  and  it  is  seen  in 
its  perfection  when  given  by  such  hosts  as 
Lord  and  Lady  Coleridge.  As  to  the  menu, 
I  did  not  think  of  it;  as  to  the  ladies'  toil- 
ettes, they  were  in  such  perfect  good  taste 
that  they  did  not  attract  attention,  and  the 
light-footed  serving  men  came  and  went  so 
quietly  that  they  seemed  to  perform  their  of- 
fices by  magic. 

Lord  Coleridge  was  a  prince  of  talkers,  and 
his  talk  was  of  the  great  men  he  had  known 


46  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and  of  the  great  books  with  which  he  was  fa- 
miliar. He  spoke  much  of  his  friend,  Matthew 
Arnold.  They  had  lived  as  boys  together  in 
Devonshire,  when  they  were  six  and  seven 
years  of  age,  Coleridge  being  Arnold's  senior 
by  one  year.  Even  then,  deep  in  their  studies 
of  Latin  and  Greek,  there  was  formed  a  per- 
sonal and  literary  friendship  which  was  only 
interrupted  by  death.  At  an  age  when  our 
American  boys  are  making  mud  pies  in  the 
kindergarten,  Coleridge  was  reading  Virgil 
under  the  tuition  of  his  celebrated  aunt,  Sara 
T.  Coleridge.  Speaking  of  Arnold,  he  said 
that  as  son,  husband,  father,  brother,  chum, 
friend  and  companion,  he  was  always  and 
everywhere  the  same  genuine  gentleman. 
Once  Coleridge  had  the  right  to  make  a  nom- 
ination for  membership  of  some  society  at 
Oxford ;  I  do  not  remember  what  it  was,  but 
it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  the  candidate 
should  make  a  speech,  and  Arnold  had  never 
made  one.  Coleridge  named  Arnold  for  the 
place,  and  notified  him  that  he  would  be  ex- 
pected to  make  a  speech.  "  Matt,  you  must 
make  a  speech,"  said  Coleridge. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  47 

''But  I  can't,"  said  Arnold,  "I  never 
did  such  a  thing  in  my  life/' 

'  *  But  you  must ;  otherwise  you  can  not  be 
elected.'' 

''Well,  ril  try,"  said  Arnold,  despair- 
ingly. 

"  It  was  a  very  poor  speech,  indeed,"  said 
Lord  Coleridge,  "  but  it  fulfilled  the  condi- 
tion." 

Lord  Coleridge  was  severe  'n  his  criticism 
of  Louis  Napoleon  and  the  Empress  Eugenie. 
He  had  known  the  former  personally,  and 
knew  enough  of  him  to  know  that  he  was  a 
beasto  As  Emperor  of  the  French,  he  did 
everything  in  his  power  to  minister  to  the 
lowest  tastes  of  his  people  that  they  might 
tolerate  his  dynasty.  He  said  he  had  once  de- 
nounced Eugenie  publicly,  and  she  was  the 
only  woman  he  had  ever  felt  called  upon  to  treat 
in  that  manner.  As  Empress,  she  was  a 
cold-blooded,  scheming  woman,  cruel  and 
ambitious,  and  she  more  than  any  one  else 
was  responsible  for  the  Franco-German  war 
and  all  the  suffering  it  caused  and  the  humilia- 
tion  of  France.  While  he  had  no  criticism  to 
make  of  the  Queen's  official  recognition  of 


48  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

the  deposed  Empress,  he  found  fault  with 
her  fondness  and  Hking  for  a  woman  of  such 
a  history — it  tended  to  salve  over  and  give  a 
sort  of  approval  to  a  character  thoroughly 
unscrupulous.  There  has  been  an  effort  of 
late  in  some  of  the  English  periodicals  to  ex- 
cuse or  palliate  the  conduct  of  Eugenie  in 
forcing  her  husband  and  son  to  take  part  in 
the  disastrous  campaign  which  had  such  a 
swift  and  disgraceful  ending  at  Sedan,  but 
the  public  voice  and  the  verdict  of  history 
will  be  against  her. 

Lord  Coleridge  told  a  story  of  the  elope- 
ment of  the  late  Charles  Mathews,  who  ran 
away  with  a  Mrs,  D.,  who  had  a  son  by  her 
lawful  husband.  Mathews  carried  away 
mother  and  son,  and  he  was  such  a  jolly 
good  stepfather  that  the  boy — now  a  man — 
calls  himself  Mathews  and  is  known  by  no 
other  name.  Many  of  my  readers  will  re- 
member Mr.  Mathews  and  his  engagement  at 
Indianapolis  about  twenty-five  years  ago. 
*'Cool  as  a  Cucumber"  was  the  title  of  a 
farce-comedy,  which,  I  believe,  he  wrote 
himself,  and  in  which  he  played  the  leading 
part.      He  was  then  on  his  way  to  England 


LORD   COLERIDGE.  49 

and  had  been  a  year  in  Australia  and  Califor- 
nia. He  was  tired  of  the  everlasting  sunshine 
and  was  pining  for  an  English  drizzle  and  a 
London  fog.  In  company  with  Mr.  Halford, 
of  the  Indianapolis  Journal,  I  called  on  him 
at  the  Bates  Hotel,  where  we  found  him  in  a 
happy  mood.  We  were  having  a  nasty  Feb- 
ruary day,  and  Mathews  said  he  began  to  feel 
as  though  he  were  getting  home  again.  He 
did  not  allow  us  to  go  without  cracking  a 
bottle  of  wine  with  him.  Of  Charles  Math- 
ews, the  elder,  Lord  Coleridge  said  that  he 
was  the  most  versatile  and  remarkable  man 
who  had  appeared  on  the  modern  English 
stage.  With  a  green  curtain  for  a  back- 
ground, a  plain  table  and  chair  and  a  box 
filled  with  trumpery  for  a  setting,  Mathews 
would  come  on  in  an  ordinary  dress,  seat 
himself  at  the  table,  and  for  two  hours  would 
keep  the  audience  in  a  roar  of  laughter  at  his 
story  telling  and  characterizations.  During 
the  vacations  Mathews  would  visit  Yorkshire, 
Lancashire  and  other  localities  to  gather  sto- 
ries and  learn  the  dialects.  He  confessed 
that  the  Devonshire  dialect  was  too  much  for 
him. 


50  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Macready,  Lord  Coleridge  said,  was  also 
an  actor  of  great  power  and  versatility.  The 
actor  who  was  to  play  Richmond  to  his  Rich- 
ard once  asked:  "Where  shall  I  hit  you, 
Mr.  Macready?"  "Wherever  you  can,  sir," 
was  the  answer.  Macready  was  a  perfect 
master  of  fence. 

Invariably  in  addressing  his  wife's  broth- 
er and  sister,  Lord  Coleridge  called  them 
"brother"  and  "sister."  "Mr.  Fishback, 
you  will  please  take  my  sister  to  the  table," 
he  would  say.  We  are  accustomed  to  ridi- 
cule and  laugh  at  the  disinclination  of  the 
House  of  Lords  to  pass  the  bill  which  has  so 
often  gone  through  the  Commons  for  remov- 
ing the  legal  bar  which  prohibits  marriage 
Avith  a  "deceased  wife's  sister."  Matthew 
Arnold,  in  one  of  his  essays,  says  that,  while 
upon  principle  there  seems  to  be  no  excuse 
for  the  existing  law,  it  can  be  justified  on  the 
ground  of  delicacy.  And  I  can  well  see  that 
there  would  be  a  shock  to  the  sensibilities  of 
a  refined  person  in  the  bare  suggestion  of 
such  a  relation.  It  may  be  called  squeamish- 
ness — but  a  little  dash  of  that  even  might  be 
of  value  to  our  robust  American  character. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  51 


CHAPTER  VIL 

On  Monday  morning,  July  27,  at  1 1  o'clock, 
I  went  to  the  Judge's  Lodgings,  where  I  met 
Mr.  Baring  Lawford,  the  brother  of  Lady 
Coleridge,  who  conducted  me  to  a  seat  on  the 
judge's  bench  in  the  court  room.  Presently 
the  Lord  Chief-Justice,  clad  in  his  crimson 
robe,  a  wig  with  long  curls,  wearing  his  im- 
maculate kids  and  carrying  about  his  neck 
the  massive  gold  chain,  and  escorted  by  the 
high  sheriff,  clerk  and  bailiffs,  came  into  the. 
room,  and,  after  a  stately  bow  to  the  barris-^ 
ters  and  those  present,  who  stood  up  at  his 
entrance,  and  the  proclamation  of  the  crier, 
his  Lordship  took  his  seat  and  the  Assizes  were 
open.  The  grand  jurors  arose,  the  oath  was 
first  administered  to  the  foreman  and  then  to  the 
other  jurors,  three  at  a  time,  each  juror  obey- 
ing the  injunction  given  by  the  clerk  at  the 


52  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

end  of  the  oath  to  "kiss  the  book.*'  The 
oath  was  in  substance,  and  almost  in  words, 
like  the  oath  now  administered  to  grand  jurors 
in  all  the  American  criminal  courts. 

I  was  peculiarly  struck  by  the  make-up  of 
the  grand  jury,  which  was  composed  of  men  of 
education  and  of  commanding  influence  in  the 
county.  It  is  esteemed  as  a  privilege  and 
an  honor  to  serve  in  that  capacity.  Here 
it  is  considered  by  many  of  our  best  citi- 
zens as  an  intolerable  burden.  A  short  oral 
charge  was  given  by  the  judge,  and  the  jury 
retired  to  an  upper  chamber  directly  over 
the  judge's  seat  to  consider  the  indictments 
presented  by  the  crown  officers.  The  court 
room  was  small,  circular  in  form,  with  a 
gallery  supported  by  pillars  running  around 
the  entire  room.  The  attorneys  and  solicitors, 
clad  in  ordinary  citizens'  dress,  occupied  a 
small  space  in  the  center,  directly  under  the 
judge's  bench;  the  barristers,  in  wigs  and 
gowns,  were  ranged  on  two  benches  to  the 
left,  and  the  jury  box  was  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  room,  so  that  the  barristers  address- 
ing the  jury  spoke  over  the  heads  of  the  at- 
torneys and  solicitors,  who  occupied  the  pit 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  53 

in  the  center.  To  the  right  of  the  jury  box 
were  the  witness  stand  and  the  prisoner's 
dock.  While  the  grand  jury  were  deliberating 
Lord  Coleridge  turned  to  me  and  said:  "I 
will  now  go  out  and  rid  myself  of  some  of  this 
superfluous  toggery.* 


*NotwithstandingLord  Coleridge's  talk  about  his  wig 
and  "tail"  and  "toggery,"  he  was  certainly  conscious  of 
the  fact  that  these  official  belongings  are  not  without 
their  use.  Under  the  American  system  of  an  elective 
judiciary  and  short  tenures,  the  Bench  has  declined  in 
ability.  Excepting  the  federal  judges,  and  those  who 
are  appointed  or  elected  for  long  terms,  it  can  not  be 
said  that  they  are  as  a  rule  selected  from  the  ablest 
and  most  learned  of  the  profession.  Dependent  upon 
popular  favor,  and,  worse  still,  often  dependent  upon 
the  wire-pullers  and  "  practical  politicians,"  so-called, 
for  their  places,  it  is  difficult  for  our  elective  judges  to 
maintain  that  independence  and  dignity  of  character 
which  are  essential  to  a  good  judge.  Some  of  our 
candidates  for  the  Bench,  on  the  eve  of  elections,  go 
about  with  the  "  bosses "  and  "  fixers  "  to  the  beer- 
gardens  soliciting  votes.  Colonel  Ingersoll  once  said 
that  the  Comanche  Indians  could  be  made  peacea- 
ble, if,  instead  of  blankets,  the  government  would  com- 
pel them  to  wear  stove-pipe  hats  and  dress  coats.  The 
wearing  of  gov/ns  by  the  judges  of  our  state  courts  would 
not  make  Marshalls  and  Store's  of  all  of  them,  but  it 
would  raise  questions  in  the  public  mind,  and  in  their 
own  minds  possibly,  as  to  their  fitness  for  judicial 
stations.     Hooker,  in   his  Church  Polity,  insists,  with 


54  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Lord  Coleridge  returned  in  a  short  time  with 
a  h'ghter  wig  with  short  curls.  He  had  hardly 
resumed  his  seat  when  the  foreman  of  the 
grand  jury,  from  the  gallery  above,  handed 
down  to  the  clerk,  whose  desk  was  at  the 
right  of  the  judge,  an  indictment  which  was 
presented  at  the  end  of  a  staff  about  ten  feet 
long. 

The  clerk  took  the  document  from  the 
ring  in  which  it  was  enclosed,  inspected  it  a 
moment  to  see  if  it  were  properly  signed  and 
indorsed, announced  the  name  of  the  defendant, 
who  immediately  appeared  in  the  dock,  and, 
after  arraignment  and  plea,  the  petit  jury  was 
sworn  to  try  the  case.  The  prisoners  to  be 
tried  had  been  committed  by  the  examining 
magistrates  and  the  indictments  had  been  pre- 
pared before  the  assembling  of  the  grand  jury. 

strong  reason,  upon  the  clergy  wearing  a  dress  befitting 
their  office.  He  says,  "  Notwithstanding  both  judges, 
through  the  garments  of  judicial  authority,  and  through 
the  ornaments  of  sovereignty  princes,  yea  bishops 
through  the  very  attire  of  bishops,  are  made  blessed, 
that  is  to  say,  marked  and  manifested,  they  are  to  be 
such  as  God  hath  poured  his  blessing  upon  by  advanc- 
ing them  above  others  and  placing  them  where  they 
may  do  Him  powerful  good  service." 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  55 

The  examinations  by  the  grand  jury  were 
very  brief,  and  the  witnesses  came  at  once 
from  the  grand  jury  room  into  court  to  testify 
at  the  trial.  This  was  a  very  expeditious 
way  of  transacting  business,  but  the  theory  of 
the  English  people  is  that  the  criminal  laws 
and  the  criminal  courts  are  enacted  and  estab- 
lished to  punish  offenders  rather  than  to  afford 
tricky  and  eloquent  advocates  an  opportunity 
to  befuddle  witnesses  and  jurors,  to  the  end 
that  felons  may  escape  punishment.  Upon 
the  whole,  I  prefer  the  swift,  sure,  but,  at  the 
same  time,  careful  methods  of  English  crimi- 
nal jurisprudence  to  our  cumbersome,  tech- 
nical, dilatory  way  of  dealing  with  criminals. 
Even  when  supplemented  by  the  proceedings 
of  Judge  Lynch  and  the  White  Caps,  our 
efforts  come  short  of  what  good  citizens  have 
a  right  to  expect  in  a  civilized  country. 

The  barrister,  holding  the  brief  for  the 
prosecution,  rose  in  his  place  as  soon  as  the 
prisoner  appeared  and  stated  the  case  to  the 
jury.  He  then  produced  and  examined  his 
witnesses.  Following  this  came  the  address 
of  the  barrister,  defending,  and,  after  the 
witnesses    for    the    defense   were   heard,    the 


56  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

judge  summed  up,  or,  as  we  say,  charged 
the  jury.  There  were  no  motions  to  quash 
indictments,  or  to  continue  cases,  or  to 
change  the  venue ;  no  instructions  were  pre- 
pared by  wily  counsel  to  trap  the  court  into 
an  error,  and  the  charges  were  oral.  The  sum- 
ming up  by  Lord  Coleridge  was  comprehen- 
sive and  fair.  No  point  in  the  evidence  for 
the  prosecution  or  the  defense  was  slurred  or 
unduly  emphasized.  A  barrister  told  me  that 
there  was  no  judge  in  England  whose  recol- 
lection of  testimony  was  so  accurate.  With- 
out having  taken  a  note  he  would  state  the 
substance  of  every  witness's  story,  so  that 
when  the  judge  finished  the  jury  were  ready 
to  return  their  verdict.  In  every  case  the  ver- 
dict was  returned  after  a  short  consultation  in 
the  box ;  the  jury  did  not  retire  from  the  court 
room  once,  and  the  longest  time  occupied  in 
their  deliberations,  on  a  single  case,  did  not 
exceed  ten  minutes. 

In  one  case  the  jury  acquitted  a  prisoner 
who  the  judge  thought  should  have  been  con- 
victed, and  he  jokingly  remarked  that  Mr. 
W.,  the  barrister  for  the  defense,  had  beaten 
him    in    that    case.       He   was    not    seriously 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  57 

offended,  however.  It  was  a  charge  of  crimi- 
nal assault  upon  a  young  woman,  whose 
testimony  was  very  positive  as  to  the  fact, 
but  she  did  not  make  it  quite  clear  why 
no  outcry  was  made  until  a  couple  of  young 
men  coming  over  a  stile  in  the  hedge  row 
surprised  her  and  the  prisoner  in  a  com- 
promising position.  What  was  remarkable 
in  the  case  was  that  the  witnesses  detailed  the 
facts  without  being  allowed  to  dwell  upon  the 
disgusting  details,  which  are  usually  elicited 
with  so  much  gusto  by  dirty-minded  attorneys 
in  our  criminal  courts.  When  the  prosecu- 
trix stated  that  the  defendant  was  '  'taking  pro- 
ceedings" with  her,  the  judge  said  "that  is 
sufficiently  explicit." 

A  clerk  in  a  Birmingham  bank  had  been 
guilty  of  forging  checks  amounting  to  $7, 500. 
The  crime  had  been  committed  only  a  short 
time  before  the  trial.  When  the  prisoner  rose 
to  receive  his  sentence  the  Chief-Justice  ad- 
dressed him  substantially  as  follows :  "Young 
man,  you  have  been  holding  a  position  of  great 
trust,  and  you  have  betrayed  it.  I  should 
have  very  little  respect  for  myself,  per- 
sonally,  or  for  the  great  office  I  hold,    if  I 


58  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

should  consider  your  offense  a  light  one.     I 
give  you  ten  years'  penal  servitude." 

It  will  occur  to  my  readers  that  this  method 
of  dealing  with  bank  wreckers  is  somewhat 
summary  when  contrasted  with  our  v/ays  of 
doing  things.  A  few  instances  of  sure,  swift 
and  severe  punishment  in  such  cases  would 
have  a  wholesome  effect  upon  the  conduct  of 
our  bank  officials.  No  dilatory  motions  fol- 
low the  verdict.  As  soon  as  it  is  announced 
sentence  is  pronounced  and  the  convict  is  sent 
to  prison. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  59 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

I  NOTICED  that  Lord  Coleridge  had  a  doc- 
ument which  he  examined  with  care  just  be- 
fore pronouncing  sentence.  The  following 
letter,  from  Mr.  Egerton  B.  Lawford,  the 
marshal  of  the  court,  and  a  brother  of  Lady 
Coleridge,  explains  it: 

July  30,  1891. 
Dear  Mr.  Fishback — I  am  directed  by  the  Lord 
Chief-Justice  to  forward  to  you  the  inclosed  calendar 
of  prisoners  tried  at  Warwick  this  week.  His  Lord- 
ship thinks  it  may  be  of  interest  to  you  containing, 
as  it  does,  a  record  of  previous  convictions  against  the 
prisoners,  which  information  is  supplied  for  the  sole 
and  exclusive  use  of  the  judge;  such  information  being 
carefully  withheld  from  the  knowledge  of  the  jury.  I 
hope  you  may  have  a  pleasant  trip  to  Paris  and  a  safe 
journey  home. 

The  calendar  of  prisoners  to  be  tried  at  the 
Summer  Assizes,  to  be  holden  at  the  Shire 
Hall,   Warwick,    on  Saturday,  the  25th  day 


6o  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

of  July,  1 89 1,  contains  the  names  of  the 
prisoners  to  be  tried,  with  a  record  showing 
description  of  the  offenses  with  which  they 
are  charged,  and  a  statement  of  other  crimes 
of  which  they  may  have  been  convicted.  To 
this  was  affixed  the  certificate  of  the  governor 
of  the  prison  in  these  words : 

"  I  certify  that  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  and  be- 
lief, the  several  prisoners  have  been  convicted  as  stated 
above.  H.  W.  Parr,  Governor." 

If  the  letter  "N  "  were  opposite  the  name,  it 
signified  the  prisoner  could  neither  read  nor 
write;  the  letter  "R"  that  he  could  read,  but 
not  write ;  ' '  Imp . ' '  that  he  could  read  and  write 
imperfectly.  "Well"  that  he  could  read 
and  write  well.  *  *  Sup. ' '  meant  superior  edu- 
cation. Then  followed  the  mystery  or  call- 
ing of  the  prisoner,  as  sailor,  shoemaker, 
watchmaker,  painter,  laborer,  clerk,  brass- 
founder.  Then  followed  some  of  the  convic- 
tions. For  instance,  A,"  5  years  in  reformatory 
for  having  unlawful  possession  of  an  album;" 
B,  "  one  summary  conviction  for  cruelty  to  a 
dog;"  C,  "14  days  for  stealing  a  hat,  21 
days  for  stealing  3  1-2  lbs.  beef,  seven  sum- 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  61 

mary  convictions  for  assault  and  vagrancy." 
D,  "  5  years  penal  servitude  for  stealing  7 
shillings  and  6d."  When  the  Chief-Justice 
read  this,  his  face  flushed  with  indignation 
and  he  said,  "I  can  not  understand  these 
ferocious  penalties  inflicted  by  the  local  mag- 
istrates— what  would  they  do  in  cases  of 
crime  with  violence?"  In  view  of  this  he  let 
the  prisoner  off  with  a  mild  sentence  of  four 
months  for  burglary.  I  was  informed  that  the 
Chief-Justice  often  paid  a  barrister  a  fee  for 
defending  a  poor  prisoner.  The  county  pays 
the  barrister  who  prosecutes.  To  a  prisoner 
who  was  convicted  of  stealing  8  shillings  and 
some  napkins  from  an  old  lady,  v/hom  he 
knocked  down,  the  Chief-Justice  said,  "  You 
have  committed  a  crime  with  violence,  and  I 
visit  your  crime  with  a  heavy  hand.  I  give 
you  18  months  at  hard  labor."  He  also 
read  a  lecture  to  the  constable.  "Why  did 
you  arrest  this  man,  sir  ?"  "I  arrested  and 
searched  him  and  made  the  charge  against 
him,  because  I  knew  him  to  be  a  thief." 
"  You  had  better  be  careful  about  arresting 
people  on  suspicion,  or  you  will  be  cast  some 


62  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

day."  *  It  so  happened  in  the  case  on  trial 
that  the  proof  justified  the  arrest.  After  one 
of  the  adjournments,  Lord  Coleridge  asked  me 
what  I  thought  of  his  way  of  disposing  of  the 
criminal  calendar.  I  told  him  it  seemed  to  me 
to  be  a  summary  way  of  doing  things,  but  that 
I  believed  every  man  had  had  a  fair  trial,  and 
that  the  jury  had  done  right  in  every  case, 
even  in  the  one  where  they  beat  his  Lordship 
and  acquitted  a  prisoner  who,  in  his  opinion, 
was  guilty. 

The  grand  jury  were  in  session  two  hours, 
and  at  the  end  of  that  time  they  had  returned 
into  court  twelve  indictments.  These  were 
all  disposed  of  in  two  days  and  a  half.  Dur- 
ing the  trial  of  one  case,  in  which  a  number 
of  witnesses  were  examined,  his  Lordship  nod- 
ded as  if  he  were  asleep.  The  barrister  de- 
fending, a  Mr.  W.,  went  on  with  his  examin- 
ation of  the  witnesses,  but  seemed  to  be  em- 
barrassed,   fearing   that   the   judge  was    not 


*  This  is  in  fine  contrast  with  the  disregard  of  the 
rights  of  the  citizen  by  Mayor  Dennj,  of  Indianapolis, 
who  in  a  communication  to  the  Century  Magazine 
pkimes  himself  upon  the  fact  that  he  gave  the  police 
carte  blanche  to  seize,  try,  convict  and  flog  all  persons 
whom  they  had  reason  to  suspect  of  being  "  tramps.'' 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  63 

hearing  the  testimony.  When  Mr.  W.  had 
concluded,  Lord  Coleridge  opened  his  eyes 
and  proceeded  at  once  with  his  summing  up, 
which  showed  that  he  had  not  missed  a  syl- 
lable of  the  evidence.  In  a  former  paper  I 
spoke  of  the  charm  of  his  voice.  This  was 
shown  in  a  marked  manner  in  his  charge  to 
the  jury.  Pure  English,  spoken  as  Lord  Col- 
eridge spoke  it,  may  be  made  as  musical  as 
Italian  or  French.  Perfect  enunciation,  with 
just  enough  stress  and  volume  to  be  heard  by 
the  persons  addressed,  without  gesticulation 
or  undue  waste  of  lung  power,  give  the  speak- 
er an  immense  advantage  over  the  hammer- 
and-tongs  oratory  which  mars  the  speech  of 
so  many  of  our  lawyers  and  public  men. 

Western  lawyers  have  this  fault  In  great 
excess,  and  on  a  recent  occasion  in  the  Su- 
preme Court  at  Washington  the  judges  request- 
ed an  attorney  to  address  them,  if  possible, 
without  making  so  much  noise.  Soon  after 
the  case  was  disposed  of  an  admiralty  case 
was  heard  by  the  court,  in  which  it  was 
claimed  that  a  collision  of  two  vessels  in  a 
fog  was  caused  by  the  failure  of  one  of  them 
to  sound   the  fog-horn.     It  was  shown  that 


04  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

the  machinery  for  sounding  the  horn  was  out 
of  order,  but  it  was  claimed  that  a  sailor  with 
a  powerful  voice  was  used  as  an  effective 
substitute.  One  of  the  Supreme  Judges  re- 
marked, that  if   it  could  be  shown  that   Mr. 

,  of (naming  the  noisy  attorney), 

was  on  the  vessel  at  the  time  the  defense 
might  be  good. 

Once  Chief-Justice  Marshall  sent  the  mar- 
shal of  the  court  to  whisper  to  a  Cincinnati  at- 
torney, who  was  addressing  the  court  after  the 
manner  of  a  horse  auctioneer,  that  the  judges 
were  not  deaf.  Governor  Hendricks  of  Indiana 
was  an  example  of  how  effective  a  speech  may 
be  made  without  vociferous  ranting.  I  have  seen 
him  leave  the  platform  alter  speaking  for  an 
hour  to  a  crowd  in  the  open  air  without  show- 
ing the  slightest  sign  of  fatigue.  Americans 
make  a  good  deal  of  fun  of  John  Bull's  way 
of  speaking  his  mother  tongue,  but  careful 
observation  of  the  speech  of  cultivated  English 
ladies  and  gentlemen  will  convince  any  one 
that  they  use  the  language  with  tolerable  skill 
and  accuracy. 

During  the  trial  of  one  case  a  clownish  wit- 
ness with  a  mirth-provoking  stutter  was  tell- 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  65 

ing  his  story  in  the  Cousin  Sally  Dillard 
style  and  seemed  to  be  utterly  unable  to  get 
through.  He  saw  that  the  jury,  the  barris- 
ters, the  bystanders  and  even  the  Lord  Chief- 
Justice  were  all  amused,  but  he  overdid 
the  thing,  and  after  the  fun  had  gone  far 
enough  his  Lordship  said:  "  Mr.  Witness, 
you  have  made  us  all  laugh  heartily,  but  you 
must  now  get  on  with  your  story ;  if  you  do 
not  you  will  go  somewhere  else."  These 
words,  spoken  with  gentleness,  firmness  and 
dignity,  produced  a  magical  effect  and  the 
witness  found  his  tongue  without  difftculty. 


66  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  barrister,  Mr.  W.,  who  took  dinner  at 
the  Judge's  Lodgings  on  Tuesday,  gave  me 
some  interesting  information  concerning  the 
relations  the  attorneys  and  barristers  have  to- 
wards one  another.  A  barrister  may  not 
"tout"  for  retainers  nor  **hug"  for  business. 
If  on  the  circuit  he  must  not  eat  at  the  same 
table  with  the  attorneys.  If  he  chances  to 
stop  at  the  same  inn  his  meals  must  be  served 
in  his  own  apartment;  he  must  not  ride  in 
the  same  coach  with  a  solicitor  or  an  attor- 
ney, nor  smoke  in  the  same  room,  nor  bestow 
on  him  or  receive  from  him  any  hospitality. 
It  would  be  a  gross  breach  of  professional  de- 
corum for  a  barrister  to  waltz  or  dance  with 
any  member  of  a  solicitor's  family,  for  this 
would  be  a  gross  example  of   "hugging"  for 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  67 

business.*  The  phrase  "briefless  barrister" 
came  to  me  with  a  meaning  and  emphasis 
that  were  new  to  me.  After  several  years  of 
circuit  riding  without  a  retainer,  the  young 
barrister  is  apt  to  conclude  that  he  has  m^issed 
his  vocation,  and  he  betakes  himself  to  the 
colonies,  or  does  newspaper,  or  magazine,  or 
other  literary  work  in  London  or  the  provinces. 
It  has  been  stated  recently,  on  what  seemed 


*When  Jim  Fisk  and  Jaj  Gould  were  working  out 
Fisk's  formula  that  it  was  "  easier  to  rescue  property 
from  the  owners"  than  to  acquire  it  hx  legitimate 
methods,  they  retained  some  go-between  attorneys 
and  hired  Tammany  judges  to  work  the  plan.  The 
judges  were  driven  in  disgrace  from  the  Bench,  but 
the  rascals  retained  the  fruits  of  their  crimes,  and  the 
lawyers  pocketed  their  fat  fees  without  a  twinge  of  con- 
trition. What  Fisk  and  Gould  did  in  a  sort  of  Robin 
Hood  way  is  now  accomplished  by  sneak-thief  lawyers, 
who  peddle  to  their  clients  their  supposed  influence 
with  judges  upon  whom  they  have  or  claim  to  have 
some  social  or  political  "pull."  There  was  an  outcry 
against  this  abuse  during  the  last  campaign  in  Indiana, 
when  it  was  alleged  that  the  claims  of  certain  candi- 
dates for  the  Bench  were  being  pushed  by  some  lawyers 
who  it  was  charged  had  a  pass-key  to  the  back  stairs 
leading  to  the  judges'  chambers.  This  practice  is  sim- 
ply shocking,  and  the  fact  that  it  is  allowed  by  some 
judges,  and  is  used  by  otherwise  reputable  attorneys, 
does  not  abate  a  jot  of  its  enormity. 


68  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

to  be  good  authority,  that  only  about  lo  per 
cent,  of  the  young  men  who  are  called  to  the 
bar  succeed  in  making  their  way.  This  is  a 
melancholy  showing  when  one  considers  how 
much  time  and  money  they  have  spent  in  the 
effort  to  qualify  themselves  for  the  work  of 
their  profession. 

It  was  at  the  Warwick  Assizes,  In  March, 
1 77 1,  that  the  case  of  Rex  vs.  Donnelan  was 
tried  before  Justice  BuUer.  I  saw  the  origi- 
nal records  of  the  case,  which  are  kept  at  the 
Judge's  Lodgings.  Donnelan  was  tried  for 
murder,  being  charged  with  poisoning  a  kins- 
man, a  nephew,  I  think.  The  defendant  was 
a  man  of  property  and  influence.  The  trial 
began  at  7:  30  A.  M.,  on  Friday,  March  30; 
at  6:  34  P.  M.  there  was  a  verdict  of  guilty; 
the  prisoner  was  sentenced  immediately  and 
was  hanged  early  on  the  following  Monday 
morning.  It  was  a  case  resting  upon  circum- 
stantial evidence,  and  Justice  Buller's  charge 
to  the  jury  has,  ever  since  that  time,  been 
regarded  as  a  leading  authority  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  presumptive  proof.  The  celebrated 
Dr.  Hunter,  whose  bust  is  in  Leicester  Square, 
London,  came  down  to  Warwick  and  testified 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  69 

as  an  expert  for  the  defense  against  several 
other  physicians  who  gave  opinions  as  to  the 
cause  of  death.  The  jury  discredited  Hun- 
ter, and  at  the  time  it  was  rumored  that  his 
sworn  statement  was  procured  by  the  payment 
of  a  large  fee.  "This,"  said  Lord  Coleridge, 
"was  the  only  stain  upon  the  name  of  one  of 
the  greatest  physicians  England  ever  had."* 


*The  hired  professional  expert  witness  has  got  to 
be  such  a  nuisance,  such  an  obstn:ction  to  the  admin- 
istration of  justice,  that  he  has  been  expelled  from  the 
courts  of  two  civilized  countries — France  and  Ger- 
many— and  has  been  denounced  and  discredited  in  the 
highest  courts  of  England  and  the  United  States.  In 
a  case  reported  in  21  How.,  pp.  88-igo,  Mr.  Justice 
Grier  said  in  his  opinion:  "Experience  has  shown  that 
opposite  opinions  of  persons  professing  to  be  experts 
may  be  obtained  to  any  amount ;  and  it  often  happens 
that  not  only  many  days,  but  even  weeks  are  consumed 
in  cross-examinations  to  test  the  knowledge  or  skill  of 
the  witnesses  and  the  correctness  of  their  opinions, 
wasting  the  time  of  the  court  and  wearying  its  patience, 
and  perplexing  instead  of  elucidating  the  questions  in- 
volved in  the  issue."  Mr,  Justice  McLean,  when  on 
the  circuit,  said  in  a  case  reported  in  6  McLean  303, 
that  "the  opinions  of  experts  who  have  been  examined 
are  in  conflict,  and,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  this 
has  been  uniformly  the  case  where  experts  have  been 
examined."  In  the  Tracy  Peerage  case,  Lord  Camp- 
bell said  of  an  expert:     "  I  do  not  mean  to  throw  any 


70  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Lord  Coleridge  met  Grant  when  Grant  was 
in  Europe,  and  met  Sherman  in  America  in 
1883.  At  a  banquet  Sherman  told  him  a 
story,  which  maybe  an  old  one,  about  his  oc- 
cupation of  Atlanta  in  1864.  The  ministers 
were  much  exercised  about  their  worship  and 
consulted  Sherman  about  it.  He  told  them 
to  proceed  as  usual.  "But  how  about  pray- 
ing for  President  Lincoln?"  asked  the  minis- 
reflection  on  Sir  Frederick  Madden.  I  dare  say  he  is 
a  very  respectable  gentleman,  and  did  not  mean  to  give 
any  evidence  that  was  untrue,  but  reallj'  this  confirms 
my  opinion  that  hardly  any  weight  is  to  be  given  to 
scientific  witnesses  ;  they  come  with  a  bias  on  their 
minds  to  support  the  cause  in  which  they  are  embarked, 
and  it  appears  to  me  that  Sir  Frederick  Madden,  if  he 
had  been  a  witness  in  a  cause  and  had  been  asked  on  a 
different  occasion  what  he  thought  of  this  handwriting, 
would  have  given  a  totally  diflferent  answer."  The 
abuse  is  notorious  in  patent  cases.  Hired  liars  march 
in  platoons  to  bolster  up  or  destroy  letters  patent,  and 
the  ofiice  of  many  a  patent  attorney  is  converted  into 
an  incubator  for  hatching  perjuries.  It  is  high  time 
for  some  legislation  to  stop  this  disreputable  business 
in  our  courts.  A  law  providing  for  unbiased  experts 
appointed  by  the  court  to  report  on  scientific  questions 
involved  in  the  litigation,  would  do  much  toward  the 
extermination  of  the  pestilential  brood,  whose  presence 
in  our  courts  recalls  the  old  days  when  professional 
perjurers  wore  straws  in  their  shoes  to  let  shysters 
know  that  they  were  in  the  market. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  71 

ter.  "Don't  do  it,"  said  Sherman.  "Lin- 
coln is  doing  very  well  and  doesn't  need  your 
prayers."  "How  about  President  Davis?" 
"Oh,"  said  Sherman,  "pray  for  him  with  all 
your  might;  he  greatly  needs  your  prayers." 
When  on  exhibition,  Grant  seemed  little  in- 
clined to  talk,  and  made  the  impression  on 
Lord  Coleridge  that  he  was  a  very  taciturn 
person,  an  impression  which  is  common  with 
those  who  do  not  know  how  glib  and  humor- 
ous Grant's  volubility  was  when  he  was  with 
his  intimate  friends. 


72  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 


CHAPTER  X. 

Warwick  was  the  birthplace  or  home  of 
Walter  Savage  Landor.  The  house  was 
shown  me  where  he  had  lived.  A  friend  of 
Lord  Coleridge,  a  Mr.  M.,  who  lived  at  War- 
wick, was  a  very  nice,  precise  gentleman,  of 
great  delicacy  of  feeling  and  high  sense  of 
propriety,  a  man  much  with  the  ladies,  assist- 
ing in  their  social  affairs  and  church  functions. 
Landor  and  Mr.  M.  were  once  walking  to- 
gether, and  just  as  they  were  opposite  to 
where  some  lady  friends  were  standing,  Lan- 
dor, who  was  very  violent  and  abusive  at 
times,  was  speaking  of  some  duke  whom, 
with  great  emphasis  and  a  violent  gesture  at 
his  walking  companion,  he  denounced  as  an 
"infernal  scoundrel."  M.,  fearing  that  the 
ladies  would  suppose  that  he  was  the  object 
of  Landor's  malediction,  cried  out,  so  that  the 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  73 

ladies  could  hear  him,  "That  was  what  you 
said  to  the  duke,  Mr.  Landor?" 

At  dinner  on  Wednesday  I  met  a  Mr.  Hill, 
who  was  a  nephew  of  the  poet  Southey,  and 
whose  wife  was  Southey's  daughter.  Mr. 
Hill  is  or  was  about  eighty  years  old,  and 
was  a  tutor  at  Rugby  under  Dr.  Arnold.  His 
unmarried  daughter  was  with  him,  and  is 
the  only  surviving  child  of  a  large  family. 
Through  the  influence  of  his  friends,  who 
knew  him  when  they  were  bo>'S  at  Rugby, 
the  old  gentleman  had  a  place  in  some  en- 
dowed school  in  Warwickshire,  which  yielded 
him  an  income  of  £700.  He  was  a  gentle 
old  man,  whose  lifelong  occupation  as  a 
teacher  had  polished  and  softened  his  charac- 
ter to  a  temper  that  was  alert,  intelligent  and 
courteous,  and  which  at  his  great  age  gave 
him  a  special  charm.  He  was  compelled  to 
go  when  the  ladies  retired,  his  health  being 
such  as  to  forbid  late  hours. 

The  talk  over  the  port  was  varied  and  inter- 
esting. Sara  T.  Coleridge,  the  aunt  of  Lord 
Coleridge,  had  put  him  through  his  paces  in 
Greek  and  Latin  when  he  was  too  young  to 
go   to    Eton.      He  was  warmly  attached   to 


74  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

her  and  revered  and  spoke  of  her  as  "  a  saint- 
ly woman."  Being  at  dinner  once  he  heard 
Carlyie  say  of  his  aunt:  "Yes,  she  was  a 
vera  fine  creature — a  vera  fine  creature — but 
she  was  always  drunk."  Lord  Coleridge 
fired  up  instantly  and  said:  "  Mr.  Carlyie, 
if  you  mean  to  say  that  she  was  ever  or  fre- 
quently under  the  influence  of  strong  drink, 
what  you  say  is  false.  During  the  last  two 
years  of  her  life,  when  she  was  dying  of  can- 
cer, she  may  have  occasionally  taken  opium 
to  deaden  the  pain,  but  in  any  other  way  she 
was  never  drunk."  The  raspy  old  Scotch- 
man, who,  Lord  Coleridge  said,  was  an  "old 
brute,"  made  no  answer.  I  found  among  the 
company  generally  an  unfavorable  opinion  of 
Carlyie,  who  is  counted  a  man  of  powerful  in- 
tellect, but  who  was  possessed  of  insane  prej- 
udices and  worked  upon  very  narrow  lines. 

Lord  Coleridge  said  the  stories  of  Sydney 
Smith's  wit  were  not  exaggerated.  He  had 
met  him  at  dinners,  and  on  such  occa- 
sions Smith  kept  the  company  in  a  roar  of 
laughter,  until  they  suffered  with  pain  from 
side-ache.  Once  when  Smith  and  a  number 
of  guests  were  entertained  at  Holland  House, 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  75 

he  dined  with  George  IV,  then  Prince  of 
Wales,  and  remarked  that  the  Duke  of  Or- 
leans was  a  very  bad  man.  **  But,"  retorted 
the  Prince,  "  the  Abbe — who  was  a  friend  to 
the  Duke — was  a  much  more  despicable 
character,  and  he  was  a  priest."  For  once 
the  clerical  wit  got  the  worst  of  it.  This  story 
of  Beau  Brummel  and  George  IV,  which  was 
told  by  his  lordship,  may  be  new  to  some  of 
my  readers.  At  a  company  where  George 
IV,  then  Prince  of  Wales,  was  entertaining  a 
number  of  friends,  Brummel  made  a  bet  that 
he  could  make  the  fat  Prince  ring  the  bell  for 
the  servant.  So  he  said:  "Prince,  will  you 
please  ring  the  bell?"  ''Certainly,"  said 
His  Royal  Highness.  He  rang  the  bell 
promptly,  and  when  the  servant  appeared 
said:  "  Order  Mr.  Brummel's  carriage  im- 
mediately, that  he  may  go  home."  The 
Beau  won  his  bet,  but  he  lost  his  night's 
frolic. 

Speaking  of  our  late  ministers  to  England, 
Lord  Coleridge  said  Lowell  was  a  most  lova- 
ble man  and  very  popular  with  the  intellect- 
ual and  literary  people,  but  that  as  a  man  of 
affairs  and  diplomate  Phelps  was  greatly  his  su- 


76  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

perior.  He  had  hoped  that  Cleveland  would 
make  Mr.  Phelps  Chief-Justice  when  Judge 
Waite's  death  made  a  vacancy.  Of  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Lincoln,  our  minister,  he  said  he  had  been 
received  kindly  on  account  of  the  veneration  en- 
tertained for  his  father,  but  that  he  had  fine  ele- 
ments of  character,  and  by  force  of  his  own 
merit  was  gaining  rapidly  in  the  esteem  of  the 
people.  At  a  banquet  given  to  Mr.  Lowell 
soon  after  he  came  to  England  as  minister.  Lord 
Coleridge,  in  some  remarks  made  as  toastmas- 
ter,  or  in  response  to  a  toast,  alluded  in  terms 
of  pleasantry  to  Mr.  Lowell's  celebrated  essay 
on  "A  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners," 
which  is  surcharged  v/ith  Anglophobia.  Mr. 
Lowell  took  the  allusion  unkindly,  fearing  that 
it  would  stir  up  a  feeling  of  animosity  against 
him.  This  oversensitiveness  was  a  grave 
fault  in  Mr.  Lowell's  character.  I  went  to 
Chicago  several  years  ago  to  hear  his  address 
on  "The  Independent  in  Politics,"  which  he 
was  invited  to  deliver  on  Washington's  birth- 
day in  Central  Music  Hall  before  the  Union 
League  Club  and  some  Democratic  society. 
He  was  pleasantly  entertained  in  Chicago  by 
men  of   both   parties,  and   the   audience  was 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  77 

prepared  to  hear  him  give  the  political  work- 
ers and  the  men  who  do  "practical  politics" 
a  good  drubbing,  and  to  take  their  punish- 
ment good-naturedly.  Coming  upon  the  plat- 
form in  presence  of  several  thousand  expec- 
tant listeners,  he  announced  that  he  had 
changed  his  topic  and  would  deliver  a  literary 
address  to  prove  that  Shakspere  did  not 
write  the  play  of  *'  Richard  IIL"  It  was  a 
melancholy  sight  to  see  the  citizens  of  the 
pig-sticking  city  sleep  while  Mr.  Lowell  went 
through  his  labored  and  rather  ineffectual  lite- 
rary performance.  It  was  explained  afterward 
that  Mr.  Lowell  had  been  so  well  treated  by 
the  politicians  of  Chicago  that  he  was  afraid 
his  political  address  would  give  offense. 

Sipping  port  after  dinner  Lord  Coleridge 
paid  a  high  compliment  to  "  Cook's  Imperi- 
al" wine,  which  he  said  was,  in  his  judgment, 
equal,  if  not  superior,  to  m.ost  of  the  cham- 
pagne imported  from  France.  And  this  led 
up  to  an  amusing  story  of  a  country  gentle- 
man of  Devonshire  who  gave  a  fete  to  the 
villagers  and  tenants  upon  his  estate.  To  do 
the  handsome  thing  the  host  served  the  best 
brands   of   port,  claret   and   champagne.      A 


7^  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

tenant,  after  refreshing  himself  by  sampling 
the  drinks,  was  asked  if  he  would  have  some 
more.  He  answered  that  the  high-priced 
port  and  the  claret  were  very  good,  but  for 
his  part  he  "  would  like  a  little  more  of  the 
plain  cider,"  meaning  the  costly  champagne, 
which  he  had  been  guzzling  with  great  gusto. 
I  was  booked  for  a  trip  to  Paris  and  was 
compelled  to  decline  Lord  Coleridge's  invita- 
tion to  go  with  him  to  the  Birmingham  As- 
sizes. Upon  taking  my  leave  Lady  and  Lord 
Coleridge  expressed  the  hope  that  I  might 
go  to  their  country  home  in  Devonshire, 
where  they  expected  to  be  late  in  August, 
but  the  Etruria,  in  which  I  had  secured  a 
berth,  was  to  sail  for  New  York  on  the  22d 
of  August,  and  I  had  to  deny  myself  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  them  at  Ottery  St.  Marys, 
which,  for  several  generations ,  has  been  the 
home  of  the  Coleridges. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  79 


CHAPTER  XL 

Before  leaving  England  I  wrote  to  Lord 
Coleridge,  thanking  him  for  the  kindness  he 
had  shown  me.  Coming  back  to  London, 
after  a  two  weeks'  visit  to  Paris,  I  found  the 
following  letter  awaiting  me  at  the  Tavistock 
Hotel : 

Judge's  Lodgings,  Edgbaston,  Birmingham, 

Aug.  8,  1891. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Fishback — It  is  a  great  pleasure  to 
me  to  have  been  able  in  any  v/ay  to  make  your  stay  in 
England  more  agreeable  and  interesting  than  it  would 
otherwise  have  been.  I  can  assure  you  with  per- 
fect truth  that  I  owe  Mr.  Justice  Harlan  a  real 
debt  of  gratitude  for  introducing  you  to  me.  All 
around,  we  were  equally  delighted,  and  I  shall  not 
forget  those  few  days  at  Warwick  spent  in  your 
company.  I  am  old  and  indolent,  and  a  very  bad  cor- 
respondent, but  it  will  give  me  unfeigned  pleasure  to 
hear  from  you  when  you  get  back  to  your  own  countr}''. 
To  America  I  must  always  have  the  warmest  feelings 
of  regard.  From  the  first  hour  of  my  stay  in  the  States 


8o  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

to  the  last  I  was  feasted,  honored — I  had  almost  said 
"  petted,"  so  that  if  it  had  gone  on  much  longer,  I 
should  have  had  my  head  turned. 

I  knew,  however,  to  what  I  was  coming  back  too 
well.  You  have  seen  the  best  side  of  us,  and  I 
am  neither  so  polite  nor  disloyal  as  to  question  that  we 
have  a  good  side.  And  bad  as  our  politics  seem  to  me 
just  now  to  be,  and  awful  as  the  descent  is  from  Sir 
Robert  Peel  and  Lord  John  Russell  to  "  Dizzy,"  and 
Lord  Salisbury  and  Chamberlain,  still  we  are  at  pres- 
ent free  from  that  personal  corruption  which  seems  to 
taint  your  politics  and  that  of  the  Dominion.  But  our 
press,  though  rather  better  educated,  is  to  the  full  as 
vile  as  yours,  and  it  has  a  swagger  and  insuiferable 
pretense  and  self-assertion  from  which  you  are  free. 
And  our  court  and  aristocracy^  degrade  the  independ- 
ence and  corrupt  the  manliness  and  integrity  of  the 
vast  numbers  who  are  brought  within  their  influence. 
I  don't  suppose  we  are  by  nature  worse  than  you,  but 
you  are  happily  preserved  from  corrupting  influences 
to  which  we  are  all  our  lives  exposed. 

I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  say  that  we  shall  not  be 
at  Heath's  Court  till  the  22d  of  this  month,  and  I 
rather  fear  from  what  you  said  that  this  may  be  too 
late  for  you  to  come  to  us  there.  But  it  will  give  us 
real  pleasure,  if  you  should  prolong  your  stay  on  this 
side  for  a  few  days  more,  to  receive  you  there  on  any 
day  after  the  22d,  if  you  can  and  will  come  to  us.  Be- 
lieve me  to  be.  Yours  very  sincerely, 

Coleridge. 

Several  things  are  to  be  noted  about  this 
letter.      I  do  not  think  I  violate  any  rule  of 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  8i 

propriety  in  making  it  public,  except,  pos- 
sibly, that  part  of  it  which  makes  reference 
to  myself.  Modesty  would  probably  have 
suggested  the  suppression  of  so  much  of  it; 
but,  as  Socrates  would  say,  "at  my  time  of 
life" — being  now  several  years  past  sixty — 
my  skin  is  getting  to  be  somewhat  tanned  and 
tough,  and  when  I  do  blush,  as  I  confess  I 
am  often  constrained  to  do  for  my  own  short- 
comings, to  say  nothing  of  those  of  my 
friends,  I  get  no  credit  for  it.  This  apart, 
there  is  food  for  reflection  in  what  Lord  Cole- 
ridge says  about  public  matters  here  and  in 
England.  Being  out  of  active  politics  and 
having  once  been  a  very  active  politician,  he 
was  well  qualified  to  take  a  fair  view  of  social 
and  political  tendencies  in  both  countries. 
And  then  he  was  a  man  broadened  by  thor- 
ough education,  extensive  reading  and  fine 
literary  taste.  To  him,  as  to  every  right- 
minded  and  intelligent  person,  there  is  some- 
thing shocking  in  the  prevalent  spirit  of  he- 
donism which  seems  to  be  running  riot  in  the 
civilized  world.  The  English  court  and  aris- 
tocracy, no  less  than  the  corrupt  and  corrupt- 


82  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

ing  coterie  of  politicians  and  jobbers  of  legis- 
lation at  Washington,  are  doing  everything  in 
their  power  to  poison  the  currents  of  social 
and  political  life. 

What  Lord  Coleridge  says  in  his  letter  of 
the  press  and  the  aristocracy  he  has  doubt- 
less expressed  more  publicly  in  England,  and 
his  well-known  views  have  called  forth  much 
unfriendly  criticism  of  his  public  career. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  83 


CHAPTER  Xn. 

Some  flunky  correspondent  of  the  Morning 
Advertiser,  of  New  York,  in  a  letter  published 
in  that  paper  May  27,  1894,  while  Lord  Cole- 
ridge was  dying,  echoes  the  wishes  and  re- 
sentments of  that  part  of  the  aristocracy  who 
have  had  titles  thrust  upon  them  and  who 
have  not  achieved  greatness  as  such  peers  as 
Coleridge  and  Russell,  the  present  Lord  Chief- 
Justice,  have  done.  This  correspondent,  who 
signs  himself  "Wycollar,"  says:  "The  seri- 
ous illness  of  Lord  Coleridge  has  evoked  feel- 
ings on  the  part  of  the  public  the  reverse  of 
sympathetic,  and,  although  no  newspaper  has 
ventured  to  make  any  reference  thereto  in 
print,  yet  the  almost  universal  expression  of 
opinion,  in  club  and  salon,  has  been  to  the 
effect  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  on  the 


84  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

whole  if  he  were  not  to  recover."  The  frank 
brutality  of  this  statement  is,  as  I  take  it,  a 
pretty  fair  exhibition  of  the  tone  and  temper 
of  that  class  of  the  aristocracy  who  coddle 
"Buffalo  Bill"  and  George  Gould,  and  who 
regard  prize-fighting,  horse-racing  and  gam- 
bling as  the  chief  occupations  of  a  gentleman. 
Let  it  be  noted  that  Lord  Coleridge,  who 
seemed  to  come  between  the  wind  and  the 
nobility  of  these  gentlemen  of  the  "club"  and 
"salon,"  was  the  lifelong  and  intimate  friend 
of  Cardinal  Newman,  Professor  Jowett,  the 
master  of  Balliol,  and  Matthew  Arnold,  all 
members  of  what  Lord  Coleridge's  illustrious 
kinsman  designated  "the  great  peerage  of 
undying  intellect."  If  a  man  is  to  be  known 
by  his  friends,  I  suggest  to  "Wycollar"  and 
other  such  journalistic  vermin  that  the  good 
name  of  Lord  Coleridge  will  not  suffer  by  the 
neglect  or  active  hostility  of  the  sporting  gen- 
tlemen who  desired  his  death. 

But  it  seems,  according  to  "Wycol- 
lar," that  the  Lord  Chief-Justice  did  not  de- 
port himself  with  suf^cient  deference  towards 
the  Duke  of  Rutland  and  his  sons,  the  Mar- 
quis of  Granby  and   Lord  Edward   Manners, 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  85 

in  the  trial  of  a  lawsuit  in  which  a  humble 
subject  of  her  Majesty  was  plaintiff  and  these 
noble  gentlemen  were  defendants.  There  is 
such  a  charming  naivete  in  "  VVycoIlar's  " 
way  of  telling  the  story,  that  I  give  it  in  his 
own  words : 

"  The  plaintiff  v/as  a  man  who  had  served 
a  term  in  prison  for  poaching,  and  of  the 
professional  agitator  type,  who  used  to  make 
a  practice  of  purposely  taking  up  a  position 
on  the  semi-public  paths  traversing  the  ducal 
estates,  when  shooting  was  in  progress,  with 
the  express  purpose  of  interfering  with  the 
sport  and  angering  the  sportsmen.  He  would 
often  go  so  far  as  to  gesticulate  and  shout  wildly 
while  the  drive  was  in  progress,  so  as  to  pre- 
vent the  pheasants  driven  by  the  beaters 
from  flying  in  the  direction  where  the  guns 
were  ensconced.  All  this  was  tolerated  by 
the  Duke  with  the  utmost  patience,  but  when 
at  length  he  added  insulting  language  to  his 
behavior  to  the  Duke  and  to  his  guests,  one 
of  his  Grace's  gamekeepers  took  a  hand  and 
knocked  the  fellow  down ,  with  the  result  that 
a  suit  for  damages  was  brought  by  the  man 
against  the  Duke  and  his  sons.      Lord  Cole- 


S6  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

ridge,  presumably  with  the  intention  of  get- 
ting even  with  so  recognized  social  leaders  as 
the  Duke  of  Rutland  and  Marquis  of  Granby, 
went  out  of  his  way  to  insult  all  three  noble 
defendants  during  the  trial,  wound  up  by  de- 
livering a  charge  most  unduly  biased  against 
them,  and  in  direct  contradiction  with  all  the 
established  traditions  and  principles  of  the 
sporting  world  in  England.  Of  course,  this 
has  not  been  forgotten  of  Lord  Coleridge, 
and  inasmuch  as  the  English  people  are  es- 
sentially a  sporting  race,  it  has  added  to  the 
popular  antipathy  against  the  aged  Judge, 
not    only    among    the    classes,  but    also    the 


masses." 


This  story  presents  as  formidable  an  indict- 
ment of  the  noble  defendants,  and  as  thor- 
ough a  vindication  of  Lord  Coleridge,  as  it 
would  be  possible  to  make. 

This  was  only  a  year  ago,  "  Wycollar  " 
says.  Early  in  this  century,  Sydney  Smith, 
by  his  essays  on  the  game  laws,  "raised  the 
hair,"  so  to  speak,  upon  the  backs  of  the 
noble  dukes  and  their  sons  who  used  to  set 
spring  guns,  and  send  their  gamekeepers 
out    to    murder    the    half -starved     peasants 


LORD   COLERIDGE.  ^7 

who  occasionally  snared  a  rabbit.  Now,  a 
common  man,  standing  In  a  public — "  Wy- 
coilar  "  says  a  **  semi-public  " — path,  fright- 
ens some  tame,  hand-raised  pheasants,  so  that 
instead  of  flying  toward  the  place  where  the 
noble  Duke  and  his  sons  were  **  ensconced," 
with  their  guns,  the  poor  birds  avoided 
the  ambush.  But  he  ''gesticulated"  and 
"  shouted  wildly,"  and  talked  back  to  his 
Grace,  until  his  Grace's  patience  was  worn 
out,  whereupon  his  Grace  ordered  one  of  his 
lackeys  to  set  upon  and  beat  the  offender  and 
knock  him  down.  Then  some  low-bred  bar- 
rister, having  the  traditional  courage  of  his 
profession,  accepted  a  brief  for  the  man  who 
was  thus  beaten  by  the  direction  of  the  ' '  no- 
ble defendants,"  and  the  trial  came  on  before 
Lord  Coleridge  and  a  jury.  It  was  the  duty 
of  the  judge  to  ignore  the  fact  that  the  de- 
fendants were  noble  and  the  plaintiff  ignoble, 
and  to  tell  the  jury,  as  the  law  of  England 
has  declared  for  centuries,  that  mere  words 
or  gestures  that  do  not  amount  to  an  assault 
are  no  justification  of  an  assault  and  battery. 
But  the  gravamen  of  Lord  Coleridge's  of- 
fense seems    to    have  been  that  his  charge, 


88  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

though  accurately  expressing  the  law,  was 
"  in  direct  contradiction  with  all  the  estab- 
lished traditions  and  principles  of  the  sport- 
ing world  in  England  ! "  So  it  seems  that 
the  common  law  of  England  does  not  ac- 
cord with  the  traditions  and  principles  of 
the  sporting  gentlemen  of  the  "club"  and 
"salon."  Well,  the  noble  Duke  and  his 
sons,  the  Marquis  of  Granby  and  Lord  Man- 
ners, had  better  be  looking  up  the  abstracts 
of  the  titles  they  have.  As  men  were  said 
to  be  of  more  account  than  sheep  and  spar- 
rows in  the  days  of  Christ,  it  may  be  that  a  day 
is  coming,  and  God  speed  it,  when  in  England 
there  will  be  some  method  for  *  *  facilitating 
the  descent  of  dullness"  to  its  proper  level 
— a  great  lack  now  in  English  society,  as 
Professor  Huxley  says — and  when  an  in- 
herited and  unmerited  title  will  go  for  noth- 
ing. Sydney  Smith  once  asked  if  a  curate 
trampled  upon  did  not  suffer  as  great  a  pang 
as  a  bishop  confuted.  It  may  come  to  pass 
in  England  that  even  "the  classes"  and  "the 
masses"  will  come  to  understand  that  knock- 
ing down  one  of  her  Majesty's  subjects  is 
as  grave  an  offense  as  scaring  a  tame  pheas- 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  89 

ant   beyond    the    range    of    an"  ensconced  " 
gun  in  the  hands   of    a  noble  duke. 


* 


*Speaking  of  Lord  Coleridge,  in  the  reminiscences 
already  mentioned,  Lord  Russell,  the  present  Lord 
Chief-Justice,  says  :  "  Few  men,  in  his  position,  are 
without  enemies,  and  he  was  no  exception  to  the  gen- 
eral rule.  For  mj^self,  I  knew  him  as  a  kind,  consider- 
ate and  generous  friend,  steady  in  his  friendships  and 
probably  constant  also  in  his  dislikes.  There  are  many 
now  living  who  have  experienced  kindness  at  his  hands 
and  who  can  recall,  as  I  can,  with  gratitude,  words  of 
encouragement,  spoken  in  times  of  doubt  and  difficulty. 
These  count  for  much  in  the  career  of  a  barrister  strug- 
gling to  emerge  from  the  unknown  crowd.  No  one, 
however,  will  gainsay  that  by  his  death  a  great  figure 
has  passed  away.  He  was  intellectually,  as  he  was 
physically,  head  and  shoulders  above  the  average  of 
his  contemporaries.  He  had  a  high  sense  of  the  dig- 
nity of  his  great  office,  and  of  its  importance.  For  above 
twenty  years  he  sat  upon  the  judicial  bench,  and  I  be- 
lieve that  during  that  long  period  he  did  honestly 
strive  'to  do  right  to  all  manner  of  people,  after  the 
laws  and  usages  of  the  realm,  without  fear  or  favor,  af- 
fection or  ill-will.' " 


90  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 


CHAPTER  XIIL 

In  my  conversations  with  Lord  Coleridge  and 
his  guests  I  discovered  a  tone  of  depreciation 
in  what  they  had  to  say  of  President  Harri- 
son. This  was  an  echo  of  the  views  of  the 
so-called  mugwump  press.  In  the  same  way 
the  members  of  the  Reform  Club — of  which 
I  was  for  a  few  years  an  unworthy  member — 
are  in  the  habit  of  belittling,  or  to  use  a  milder 
phrase,  patronizing  men  of  the  West,  who, 
in  public  life,  show  ability  of  a  high  order. 
This  habit  they  should  set  themselves  to  work 
to  reform  at  once.  Their  judgments  of  men 
are  happily  reversed  in  most  cases,  and  no 
serious  harm  is  done  in  the  long  run.  Sew- 
ard was,  to  men  of  this  class,  the  only  great 
statesman ,  and  Lincoln  an  awkward ,  uncultured 
country  lawyer,  a  sort  of  Cheap  John  politi- 
cian, and  nothing  more.      McClellan  was  par 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  91 

excellence  the  great  military  chieftain  of  the 
war.  Grant  was  a  dull  fellow.  Phil  Sheri- 
dan was  properly  employed  in  buying  mules 
for  the  quartermaster's  department.  Sherman 
was  supposed  to  be  insane  because  he  dis- 
sented from  Seward's  opinion  that  the  war 
was  a  "ninety  days"  affair,  and  had  said  that 
it  would  take  quite  a  large  force  to  keep  the 
rebels  out  of  Kentucky.  And  then  Morton, 
and  John  Sherman,  and  Garfield,  and  Harri- 
son, bearing  the  bar  sinister  of  Western  birth, 
were  second-rate  men.  So  they  wrote  and 
talked  in  their  little  coteries  in  the  East.  But 
even  the  most  pronounced  mugwump,  rising 
now  from  his  salaams  to  the  great  statesman 
of  Gray  Gables,  will  admit  that  Lincoln  was 
something  of  a  man  after  all,  and  that  Grant, 
and  Sherman,  and  McPherson,  and  Logan, 
and  Sheridan,  handicapped  as  they  were  by 
reason  of  their  obscure  birth  in  the  wild  West, 
made  tolerable  figures  as  military  leaders ; 
that  Senator  Sherman,  and  Harrison,  and 
Garfield  did  not  appear  at  a  disadvantage 
alongside  of  the  later  specimens  of  Eastern 
statesmanship,  the  Gormans,  the  Hills,  the 
Murphys,  the  Quays,  the  Camerons,  etid ge- 


92  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

nus  omne.  Lord  Coleridge  being  much  with 
these  Eastern  gentlemen  when  in  this  country 
in  1883,  and  reading  copies  of  the  Nation 
occasionally,  had  come  to  think  that  Harrison 
was  a  sort  of  "  boy  statesman,"  whose  ad- 
ministration would  be  respectable  and  possi- 
bly able  under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Blaine, 
who  to  the  English  mind  stood  as  a  sort  of 
Premier  to  a  figure-head  President.  To  dis- 
abuse the  mind  of  his  Lordship  I  took  occa- 
sion to  send  him  my  sketch  of  the  life  and 
public  career  of  President  Harrison,  which 
was  published  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post, 
December  i,  1888,  a  few  weeks  after  the 
presidential  election.  In  response  I  received 
a  letter  dated  January  10,  1892,  from  St. 
Lawrence-on-the-Sea,  in  Kent,  where  Lord 
Coleridge  had  gone  for  his  Christmas  vaca- 
tion.    Among  other  things  he  said : 

"  I  thank  jou  for  the  paper  and  for  3'our  thought  of 
me  in  sending  it.  I  have  read  it  with  great  interest, 
not  only  as  being  yours,  but  because  it  narrates  and 
explains  a  career  verj'  noble  and  touching  in  itself,  and 
it  may  be  said  impossible  in  England.  There  may 
have  been  examples  in  the  times  of  the  CommonAvealth, 
perhaps,  when  Bishop  Compton,  Bishop  of  London, 
certainly'  had  been  a  cavalry  officer,  but  they  were  very 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  93 

few.  There  were  a  few  men  who  became  eminent  at 
our  bar  who  left  the  armj  at  the  peace  and  disarma- 
ment after  Waterloo,  but  that  again  was  a  very  differ- 
ent sort  of  thing.  They  were  little  more  than  boys 
when  they  went  on  half  pay,  and  practically  they  lived 
the  ordinary  humdrum  life  of  barristers  ever  after. 
With  you  it  must  have  been  more  common,  though 
such  a  character  as  you  describe  could  be  common  no- 
where. I  remember  coming  across  a  very  interesting 
and  powerful  man  in  Ohio,  who  had  served  as  a  pri- 
vate, and  was  then  (1883)  one  of  the  first  men  in  his 
State,  a  Mr,  Lincoln,  I  believe,  no  relation  to  the  great 
President,  but  a  man  of  very  great  vigor  of  mind  and 
character.  There  were  very  good  stories  of  his  force 
and  power  told  me,  but  all  highly  to  his  honor.  It  is 
a  poor  return  for  your  paper,  but  I  send  you  a  hasty 
thing  I  had  to  write  against  time  for  the  unveiling  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  bust.  It  is  really  as  much  about 
Horace  as  Arnold,  and  in  that  view  perhaps  may  interest 
you.  I  often  think  of  our  pleasant  time  together  in  the 
summer,  and  wish  that  it  could  have  been  prolonged 
or  could  be  repeated.  I  should  be  glad  to  have  shown 
you  my  Devonshire  home  merely  as  the  sort  of  coun- 
try house,  not  large  and  splendid,  but  comfortable, 
which  so  many  of  us  love  so  well.  I  was  in  one  or 
two  country  houses  in  America,  particularly  at  the 
town  of  Lenox,  Mass.,  which  seemed  to  me  in  itself 
and  in  its  surroundings  very  beautiful  and  liveable,  if 
one  may  coin  a  word.  That  I  did  not  see  many  more 
such  I  attribute  to  my  own  journeying  being  so  much 
amongst  the  cities  of  America,  which,  indeed,  with  the 
people,  were  what  I  went  to  see.  But  I  suppose  they 
are  at  least  rarer  with  you  than  with  us,  for  I  observe 
cultivated  Americans  always  were  pleased  with  them 


94  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

here  and  speak  with  regret  of  their  comparative  ab- 
sence in  the  States.  I  am  here  for  our  Christmas  va- 
cation, which  I  am  sorry  to  say  ends  to-morrow;  in 
consequence  of  the  serious  iHness  of  Lady  Coleridge. 
She  is  very  weak  and  exhausted,  and  I  can  not  help 
feeling  anxious  about  her.  They  say  this  corner  of 
Kent  is  the  purest  air  in  England.  It  is  splendid,  no 
doubt,  but  Malvern,  of  which  this  piece  of  paper  is  a 
relic,  is  still  more  to  my  taste.  We  spent  October 
there  for  the  same  reason.  Lady  Coleridge  joins  me 
in  very  kind  regards,  and  I  am  always. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

Coleridge. 
Pray  let  me  hear  from,  you  whenever  you  have  time 
to  spare  for  such  a  purpose. 

When  President  Harrison  had  completed 
his  tour  across  the  country  and  his  speeches 
were  collected,  I  sent  Lord  Coleridge  a  copy 
of  the  book  containing  them.  His  Lordship 
was  much  pleased,  and,  in  a  letter  dated  July 
2,  1892,  he  said : 

The  speeches  give  me  a  very  high  idea  of  Mr,  Har- 
rison. We  know  very  little  here  of  your  politicians, 
and  it  is  pleasant  to  be  brought  face  to  face  with  any 
one  so  manly  and  high-minded  as  Mr.  Harrison  shows 
himself  in  the  book  you  have  sent  me.  The  perpetual 
demand  which  American  customs  make  upon  any  one 
of  the  leaders  of  the  parties  in  the  way  of  speeches 
must  be  very  trying.  In  a  degree  (not  within  a  thou- 
sand miles  of  the  President)  I  found  it  so  myself  when 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  95 

I  was  in  America.  But  a  private  foreigner  can  say 
what  he  likes;  a  President,  of  course,  must  watch  his 
words. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Harrison's 
administration  fulfilled  the  expectations  of  his 
friends,  and  that  before  Lord  Coleridge  died 
he  and  other  great  men  in  England  and  else- 
where had  occasion  to  modify  their  previous 
views  concerning  his  ability  as  the  chief  ex- 
ecutive of  a  great  nation. 

But  Lord  Coleridge  loved  the  poets  and 
loved  to  talk  about  them.  This  little  ex- 
tract from  the  same  letter  gives  a  glimpse  of 
that  side  of  his  character.  Whittier  had  just 
died: 

I  see  you  have  lost  a  very  noble  old  man  in  Whit- 
tier. A  friend  of  mine  in  Philadelphia,  who  has  many 
Quaker  connections,  introduced  me  to  him  many  years 
ago  and  gave  me  all  he  had  then  written.  It  is  a  very 
pure,  bright  spirit  we  have  lost  in  him,  and  his  poetry, 
though  perhaps  not  of  the  first  order,  was  beautiful 
and  inspiring,  and  a  great  deal  of  it  will  live.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  assimilate  Walt  Whitman,  nor,  even 
as  one  sometimes  can,  see  what  others  admire  in  art  or 
literature,  though  one  can  not  agree  in  admiring  one- 
self. I  still  think  your  best  poet,  by  far,  is  Brj^ant,  be- 
cause he  is  American.  Longfellow  might  have  been  a 
Belgian,  an  Italian  or  an  Englishman,  just  as  well  as 


g6  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

an  American,  except  perhaps  for  his  too  greatly  under- 
rated Hiawatha.  But  Whittier  is,  in  his  way,  Ameri- 
can also,  and  has  always  for  that,  as  well  as  for  other 
reasons,  strongly  appealed  to  me. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  97 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Lord  Coleridge  entered  Parliament  as  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  when  he 
was,  as  Lord  Russell,  his  successor  as  Lord 
Chief-Justice,  says,  forty-seven  years  old.  He 
was  fairly  successful  as  a  political  debater,  but 
lacked  the  experience  necessary  for  a  leader 
in  that  body.  Afterward  he  was  a  member 
of  the  Gladstone  Cabinet,  from  which  he  was 
promoted  to  the  Bench.  His  judicial  career 
covered  a  period  of  twenty  years.  To  the 
last  he  felt  a  lively  interest  in  public  affairs. 
In  a  letter  written  in  the  summer  of  1892, 
from  which  I  have  already  quoted,  he  says: 

You  are  just  entering  on  a  great  contest;  ours  is 
just  over,  and  has  landed  Gladstone  once  more  in 
power.  It  is  the  fashion  here  to  say  that  he  will  not 
keep  it.  He  will  not  perhaps,  for,  wonderful  though  he 
is,  he  will   be  eighty-three  complete  in  three  months 


98  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

more  and  he  can  not  permanently  suspend  the  laws  of 
nature.  But  I  hope  and  believe  the  party  will  keep  to- 
gether long  enough  to  extinguish  the  Unionists.  I  am 
out  of  politics  (at  least  present  politics),  of  course,  but 
I  would  go  far  and  do  much  to  destroy  the  Unionists. 
To  them  and  them  alone  is  due  coercion  and  all  the 
train  of  evils  and  the  denial  of  obvious  and  safe  im- 
proveinents  in  England  and  Scotland.  I  have  no  feel- 
ing whatever  against  the  Tories;  there  must  be  such 
people  in  every  old  established  and  aristocratic  coun- 
try, and  they  at  least  are  honest  and  act  steadilj'  on 
their  principles.  But  a  Unionist,  who  pretends  to  be 
and  calls  himself  a  Liberal,  and  who  for  seven  long 
years  has  voted  for  everything  reactionary  and  utterly 
opposed  to  his  creed;  I  have  no  patience  with  these 
men.  They  were  masters  of  the  situation;  they  had 
only  to  say  this  and  that  must  not  be  and  it  would  not 
have  been.  But  they  lent  themselves,  in  their  blind 
hatred  of  Gladstone,  to  Balfour  and  his  trade  to  hasten, 
nay,  more  than  to  hasten,  all  their  worst  Tory  meas- 
ures, and  the  one  thing  I  do  gravely  regret  in  the  last 
election  is  that  it  has  left  them  still  mischievously 
strong.  They  can  not  stand  alone,  it  is  true,  but  forty- 
seven  is  more  than  I  like  to  think  of  as  a  phalanx  on 
the  flank. 

This  letter  was  written  from  the  city  of 
Gloucester,  where  Lord  and  Lady  Coleridge 
were  attending  a  musical  festival,  which  was 
given  in  the  cathedral. 

"There  is  something,"  he  says,  "  apart 
from  the  acoustic  properties  of  the  building, 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  99 

in  the  arches  and  grand  roof,  the  stained 
glass,  the  height,  the  age  of  the  building, 
which  seems  to  increase  the  beauty  and 
grandeur  even  of  Mozart  and  Beethoven. 
The  daughter  of  the  bishop  produced  a  piece 
of  real  merit,  but  a  gentleman  named  Parry 
produced  a  work  on  the  story  of  Job,  which 
seems  to  me  one  of  the  very  finest  things  an 
Englishman  has  done  for  many  years.  Per- 
haps you  know  Gloucester,  It  is  a  most  in- 
teresting city,  and  the  cathedral  and  its  sur- 
roundings are  grand  and  yet  quiet  and  beauti- 
ful in  no  common  degree.  You  are  always 
sending  me  things,  and  it  seems  greedy  to 
ask  for  more,  but  I  did  not  get  to  Indiana 
when  I  was  in  America,  and  I  have  no  clear 
idea  of  the  country  or  its  capital.  Is  there  a 
photograph  of  your  city?  I  should  greatly 
value  it  if  there  is,  and  you  would  send  it  to 
me.  When  are  you  coming  again?  The 
sooner  the  better  for  your  friends  here.  Next 
year,  of  course,  the  whole  habitable  globe 
will  congregate  upon  the  shores  of  Lake 
Michigan,  and  the  year  after  is  a  long  pros- 
pect for  an  old  man.  But  I  hope  to  meet 
you  once  more." 


lOO  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Though  past  three  score  and  ten,  it  did  not 
occur  to  me  to  think  of  Lord  Coleridge  as  an 
old  man.  He  wrote  with  the  steadiness  of  a 
strong  man,  and  an  autographic  note  of  his, 
written  on  the  fly-leaf  of  a  volume  of  Spenser 
which  he  presented  to  his  cousin,  Sophia 
Coleridge,  on  Good  Friday,  1841,  and  which 
is  now  in  my  possession,  is  a  fac-simiie  of  his 
writing  in  the  last  letter  I  received  from  him 
last  autumn.  It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  have 
known  a  great  man,  great  in  his  professional 
and  judicial  career — so  gifted,  so  scholarly, 
such  a  lover  of  all  good  things  in  literature 
and  music,  and  all  these  things  adorning  and 
strengthening,  and  not  in  the  least  impairing 
his  efftciency  as  a  great  lawyer  and  a  great 
judge.  That  he  was  both  of  these  is  the  un- 
grudging testimony  of  the  present  Lord  Chief- 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  loi 

Justice,  whose  article  in  the  North  American 
Review  for  September,  1894,  is  a  worthy 
tribute  to  his  predecessor. 

Lord  Coleridge  sacrificed  to  the  muses  as 
well  as  the  graces,  and  never  counted  it  a  de- 
fect in  the  character  of  a  good  politician  or  a 
great  lawyer  that  he  loved  poetry  and  music. 
When  President  of  the  Salt  schools  at  Ship- 
ley, Yorkshire,  an  honorary  title  bestowed 
upon  him,  he  delivered  an  address  on  "Edu- 
cation and  Instruction."  The  address  was 
delivered  in  June,  1893,  j^st  one  year  before 
his  Lordship's  death.  At  the  risk  of  extend- 
ing this  paper  beyond  a  reasonable  limit  I 
will  make  a  couple  of  extracts  from  this  ad- 
dress, which  may  be  read  with  profit  by  young 
and  old : 

Speaking  as  an  old  lawyer  especially,  I  may  say 
that  few  things  compare  in  usefulness  with  a  retentive, 
accurate  memory.  It  is  in  youth  that  this  faculty  is 
formed  and  trained,  and  one  of  the  best  methods  of 
strengthening  it  is  the  habit  of  learning  bj'  heart  pas- 
sages we  admire  from  authors,  both  in  verse  and  prose. 
What  we  learn  in  youth  we  are  apt  to  remember  well; 
mental  impressions  at  that  period  of  life  do  not  easily 
fade;  and  although  they  are  easily  received,  they  are 
indelibly  retained;  and  if  they  are  impressions  of  noble 
thoughts,  clothed  in  noble  language,  we  are  laying  up 


102  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

a  store  of  intellectual  pleasure  at  one  end  of  life  for 
enjoyment  at  the  other.  Many  of  us  live  to  grow  old; 
if  we  do,  our  minds,  if  not  ourselves,  grow  lonely;  the 
interests  of  the  world  fade  away,  and  the  fashion  and 
beauty  of  it  vanisheth,  and  a  time  comes  when  we  feel 
that: 

"  'Tis  meet  that  we  should  pause  a  while 
Ere  we  put  off  this  mortal  coil, 
And  in  the  stillness  of  old  ase 
Muse  on  our  earthly  pilgrimage." 

At  such  times  the  recollection  of  great  thoughts,  of 
lovely  images,  of  musical  words  comes  to  us  with  a 
comfort,  with  an  innocent  pleasure  which  it  is  difficult 
to  exaggerate. 

I  will  tell  a  story  which  came  to  me  a  few 
days  ago,  which  illustrates  the  accuracy  of 
Lord  Coleridge's  memory.  At  a  banquet  in 
New  York,  I  think,  some  lawyer  who  had 
tried  to  cover  or  adorn  his  literary  leanness 
by  accumulating  some  scraps  of  poetry  from 
a  Cheap  John  collection,  in  his  response  to  a 
toast,  flung  at  the  head  of  Lord  Coleridge  the 
oft-repeated  words,  "The  shallow  murmur, 
but  the  deep  are  dumb,"  which  he  attributed 
to  Roscoe  Conkling!  Lord  Coleridge,  in  his 
talk,  alluded  to  the  matter  and  said  that  the 
words  had  been  familiar  to  him  from  his 
youth,  but  that  he  had  always  been  of  the 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  103 

impression,  which  was  possibly  erroneous, 
that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  and  not  Roscoe 
Conkling,  was  the  author  of  them.  But  I 
proceed  with  the  quotation  from  his  address : 

And  what  should  you  learn.'*  Speaking  generally, 
the  safest  rule  to  follow  is  to  learn  that  which  pleases 
you  best.  I  assume  that  it  is  not  bad;  but  as  to  what 
is  best,  taste  is  very  varied,  and  that  which  commends 
itself  to  one  man  perhaps  repels  another.  My  own 
taste  you  must  take  just  for  what  it  is  worth,  but 
(leaving  out  for  obvious  reasons  all  Greek  and  Latin 
writers)  before  and  above  every  one  (including  thein) 
I  should  myself  place  Shakspere;  an  inexhaustible 
storehouse  of  wisdom,  instruction  and  exquisite  dic- 
tion, indispensable  to  any  one  who  has  anything  to  do 
with  speaking  or  writing.  I  knew  well,  I  think  many 
here  must  have  known,  a  great  advocate  who  was  on 
the  Northern  Circuit,  of  whom  it  used  to  be  said  that 
perhaps  he  did  not  know  much  law,  but  he  did  know 
a  good  deal  of  Shakspere.  And  a  great  judge  who 
knew  both  law  and  Shakspere  said,  when  this  was  re- 
peated to  him,  that  although  in  a  lawyer,  perhaps,  a 
little  law  was  desirable,  yet  if  that  could  not  be  had, 
the  next  best  thing  to  have  was  a  knowledge  of  Shaks- 
pere. Next  to  Shakspere,  I,  for  one,  should  put  Mil- 
ton. Have  any  of  you  not  heard  the  magnificent 
eloqence  of  John  Bright.?  He  told  me  himself  that  he 
was  built  on  Milton,  and  if  you  heard  him,  nay,  even 
if  you  read  him,  you  can  see  that  he  is  steeped  in  the 
spirit  of  this  great  poet,  and  that  though  he  does  not 
imitate  Milton,  he  speaks  after  Milton. 


I04  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

All  this  must  be  very  offensive  to  Hamlin 
Garland  and  his  school,  who  join  in  say- 
ing to  us  that  Shakspere,  and  Milton,  and 
Scott,  and  Thackeray,  and  Dickens  are  back 
numbers.  A  year  before  Lord  Coleridge  de- 
livered his  address  I  spoke  to  the  graduating 
class  of  the  Law  School  at  DePauw  University 
and  tried  to  utter  and  make  application,  in  a 
rather  lame  way,  I  confess,  of  one  of  the 
thoughts  of  Lord  Coleridge :  "The  drudging, 
dray-horse  lawyer,  who  shows  the  marks  of 
his  office  collar,  who  rarely  allows  himself  a 
day  off,  who  never  has  time  to  see  a  good 
play,  who  doesn't  know  the  difference  be- 
tween Yankee  Doodle  and  a  symphony  of 
Beethoven's,  who  never  witnessed  a  game  of 
foot-ball  or  base-ball,  who  never  killed  a  sal- 
mon,bass  or  trout  or  winged  a  mallard  or  can- 
vasback — how  to  be  pitied  is  he !  It  is  abso- 
lutely distressing  to  have  a  distinguished  legal 
friend  look  at  you  curiously  when  you  quote  an 
opinion  of  Buckle's,  or  Lecky's,  or  Huxley's, 
or  Matthew  Arnold's,  or  Spencer's,  and  ask 
you  who  Buckle,  or  Lecky,  or  Arnold,  or 
Spencer  is.  A  man  who  has  not  made  him- 
self   more  or  less  familiar  with  the  drift  of 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  105 

modern  literature  is  preparing  himself  for  a 
dull  old  age  and  is  depriving  himself  of  the 
best  things  that  life  affords.  Sir  Samuel 
Romilly  pleaded  with  his  professional  breth- 
ren to  devote  all  the  time  they  could  to  polite 
literature ;  not  simply  for  the  pleasure  it 
affords,  but  because  it  tended  to  make  them 
better  lawyers  and  more  useful  men.  'As  soon 
as  I  found,'  said  Romilly,  'that  I  was  to  be  a 
busy  lawyer  for  life  I  resolved  to  keep  upTny 
habit  of  non-professional  reading;  for  I  had 
witnessed  so  much  misery  in  the  last  years  of 
many  great  lawyers  whom  I  had  known  from 
their  loss  of  all  taste  for  books  that  I  regarded 
their  fate  as  my  warning.'  " 

There  is  a  pathos  in  the  concluding  para- 
graph of  Lord  Coleridge's  address  that  must 
touch  every  one.  He  was  now  in  the  last 
year  of  his  long  labors  and  useful  life.  He 
is  speaking  to  the  young  students  at  Shipley 
and  his  words  come  with  equal  emphasis  to 
the  young  everywhere. 

One  word,  if  I  may,  to  counsel  vou  to  live  faith- 
fully and  in  earnest.  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart. 
It  can  never  be  too  early  to  begin.  The  temptations 
of  youth,  of  middle    age,  of  old    age;  all  life  has   its 


io6  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

temptations,  all  can  be  conquered.  Do  not  believe 
those  who  tell  you  that  such  an  achievement  is  impos- 
sible. It  is  perfectly  possible,  as  many  have  proved, 
I  can  have  no  kind  of  reason  to  mislead  you,  and  my 
age  ought  to  give  me,  at  least  in  this  matter,  some  au- 
thority. Nothing  will  more  help  you  to  it,  nothing 
will  tend  more  to  keep  you  from  evil  than  the  com- 
pany of  good  books  and  the  thoughts  and  counsels  of 
good  men.  They  will  fill  you  with  good  thoughts,  and 
good  thoughts  bring  forth  good  deeds,  and  good  deeds 
are  the  only  true  happiness  of  life. 

I  v/ill  end  in  the  words  of  a  great  American  poet, 
Bryant,  written  when  he  was  very  young,  which  I  have 
known  and  admired — I  wish  I  might  say  I  had  lived 
by — all  my  life: 

"  So  live  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravan  which  moves 
To  that  mysterious  realm,  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  Halls  of  Death, 
Thou  go  not,  like  the  quarry-slave  at  night. 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,  but,  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams." 


LORD   COLERIDGE.  107 


CHAPTER  XVL 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1893  I  engaged  to 
write  a  notice  of  ex-President  Harrison  for 
the  Appletons'  new  edition  of  their  Cyclope- 
dia of  American  Biography,  and,  wishing  to 
use  a  portion  of  one  of  his  letters  in  which  he 
had  said  some  complimentary  things  of  General 
Harrison,  I  wrote  to  Lord  Coleridge  for  per- 
mission.     In  answer  he  wrote  the  following: 

I  Sussex  Square,  W.,  27th  April,  1893, 
Mj  Dear  Mr.  Fishback — I  have  not  time  to  prop- 
erly answer  jour  letter  of  the  13th,  and  shall  not  try. 
But  I  write  a  line  at  once  to  say  that  anything  I  have 
written  (though  I  have  quite  forgotten  what  words  I 
used)  is  very  much  at  your  service  if  you  desire  to  use 
it.  I  have  not  the  personal  acquaintance  of  either  Mr, 
Harrison  or  Mr.  Cleveland,  but  they  both  seem  to  me, 
judging  of  their  public  speeches  and  acts  only,  to  be 
men  of  high  character  and  pure  motive;  and  certainly 
the  election  seems  to  have  been  as  fairly  and  honestly 
conducted   as   is   reasonably'  possible.     Of  course,  an 


io8  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Englishman  must  needs  think  the  Republicans  dead 
wrong  in  their  political  economy;  but  I  don't  expect 
that  Mr.  Cleveland  will  be  able  to  do  much  in  a  coun- 
try so  hopelessly  protectionist,  whatever  he  ma.y  hon- 
estly wish. 

The  World's  Fair  will  keep  every  American  at  home 
this  year;  next  year,  if  we  should  be  alive,  Lady  Cole- 
ridge and  I  reckon  on  seeing  you.  I  will  write  about 
the  arbitration  later  on.  I  attended  a  session  of  it  in 
Paris,  and  was  profoundly  impressed  with  the  ability 
of  the  counsel,  the  great  dignity  and  fairness  of  the 
tribunal,  and  (last,  not  least)  the  princely  manner  in 
which  the  French  republic  was  conducting  itself  to- 
ward every  one  connected  with  the  arbitration. 
Yours  very  sincerely, 

Coleridge. 

Mr.  Cleveland's  wishes  concerning  tariff 
reform  and  financial  legislation  have  certainly 
been  frustrated  by  the  antics  of  the  ''wild 
horses"  of  his  party.  The  good  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  tells  us  it  is  not  wise  to  fish  for  whales 
in  the  Euxine  sea,  and  when  Mr.  Cleveland  or 
any  other  President  expects  to  do  great  things 
for  the  cause  of  reform  in  any  of  its  phases 
by  means  of  such  an  aggregation  of  ignorance 
and  inexperience,  to  say  nothing  worse,  as 
controlled  the  Democratic  majority  in  the  last 
Congress,  he  expects  too  much.  Mr.  Cleve- 
land mounted  the  box,  assumed  the  reins  and 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  109 

started  his  new  Congress  off  in  extra  session 
at  a  lively  pace,  after  giving  it  a  fillip  with 
his  anti-silver-purchase  message.  But  his 
leaders  balked,  and  it  was  only  by  the  aid  of 
some  hard-pulling  Republicans  that  the  repeal 
bill  became  a  law.  In  October,  1893,  Lord 
Coleridge  said  in  a  letter  to  me : 

I  have  hardly  heard  much  from  you  since  Mr. 
Cleveland's  election.  Both  the  candidates,  to  a  for- 
eigner, seem  to  have  the  merit  of  high  character  and 
principles;  but  to  an  Englishman  the  leading  lines  of 
Mr.  Cleveland's  policy  appear  to  be  those  which  a 
great  country  ought  to  move  along,  and  especially  on 
the  silver  question  he  seems  to  be  clearly  in  the  right. 
I  know  many  clever  men  who  are  bimetallists,  but  I 
have  never  been  able  to  comprehend  how  that  policy 
can  be  supported,  except  by  giving  an  artificial  value  to 
one  of  the  precious  metals,  and  then  it  is  only  another 
form  of  inconvertible  paper  and  so  it  will  never  work. 
Of  course,  gold  does  alter  somewhat,  but  returns  show 
that  gold  has  varied  so  little  for  near  one  hundred  years 
that  it  is  practically  fixed  in  value,  and  if  so,  there 
seems  to  be  an  end  of  the  question. 

In  the  same  letter  from  which  I  have  just 
quoted,  Lord  Coleridge  said: 

I  do  not  like  the  look  of  things  on  this  side  of  the 
water,  and  although  I  do  rejoice  over  the  success  of 
the  arbitration  between  the  two  countries,  I  have  never 


no  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

troubled  myself  as  to  the  details  of  the  controversy,  but 
I  rejoice  in  the  example  set  by  two  very  powerful  na- 
tions, and  I  hope  it  may  spread,  though  I  suppose  a 
great  military  monarch,  and,  above  all,  a  nation  like 
France,  will  never  arbitrate.  I  believe  we  do  quite  as 
unprincipled  and  high-handed  things  as  the  French  do, 
but  we  do  them  with  less  swagger  and  less  outward 
contempt  for  the  opinion  of  the  world.  Apart  from  the 
arbitration,  I  believe  we  are  not  going  on  very  well. 
Gladstone  is  a  marvel,  and  perhaps  the  greatest  in  our 
parliamentary  history,  but  the  laws  of  nature  can  not 
be  permanently  suspended  in  favor  of  any  one,  and  I 
think  he  himself  is  showing  the  truth  of  what  he  said 
hiinself  now  nearly  twenty  years  ago,  that  "  it  doesn't 
do,"  as  he  phrased  it,  to  serve  with  an  octogenarian 
Prime  Minister.  He  told  me  both  Lord  Russell  and 
Palmerston  had  remained  ministers  too  long,  and  I  think 
he  is  showing  it  now.  *  *  *  I  have  been  much 
struck,  and  I  confess  very  inuch  surprised,  at  the  quiet 
with  which  the  escapade  of  the  House  of  Lords  (in 
throwing  out  the  home-rule  bill)  has  been  received.  To 
me  it  seems  outrageous,  but  I  do  not  think  the  people 
care  much  about  it — perhaps  it  has  given  them  even  a 
new  lease  of  a  life,  which  Lord  Salisbury's  insolence 
seemed  to  have  and  ought  to  have  endangered. 

We  are  just  starting  for  London  to  recommence 
another  legal  year.  I  should  not  wonder  if  it  was  the 
last.  Your  letter  interested  me,  as  your  letters  always 
do,  and  made  me  hope  that  soine  time  before  I  go 
hence,  we  may  meet  again  and  have  some  more  talk 
together.  I  often  think  of  our  pleasant  times  together, 
and  wish  that  they  might  recur. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  iii 


CHAPTER  XVH. 

The  premonition  that  he  was  entering  upon 
his  last  year  was  a  true  one.  This  letter  was 
the  last  one  I  had  from  him.  His  official  la- 
bors, his  attendance  at  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  the  social  demands  of  the  London  sea- 
son broke  him  down.  And  then  he  was  de- 
pressed by  the  loss  of  three  of  his  life-long 
and  intimate  friends,  Matthew  Arnold,  Pro- 
fessor Jowett,  master  of  Balliol  College,  and 
Cardinal  Newman.  How  he  loved  Newman 
may  be  gathered  from  a  passage  in  an  ad- 
dress which  he  delivered  to  the  Institutes  Un- 
ion of  Birmingham,  on  April  25,  1890,  a  copy 
of  which  he  sent  me  after  I  left  England. 
"Thinking  for  Ourselves"  was  his  theme.  He 
said :  '  *  We  are  sent  here  by  God  with  a 
mind  as  well  as  a  body,  and  it  is  our  plain 
duty  to  make  the  best  we  can  of  both  of  them. 
*    *    The  time  will  come  when  we  'shall  per- 


112  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

ceive ' — I  [use  the  words  of  a  great  living 
writer — '  that  there  are  but  two  beings  in  the 
whole  universe — our  own  soul  and  the  God 
who  made  it.  Sublime,  unlooked-for  doctrine, 
yet  most  true.  To  every  one  of  us  there  are 
but  two  beings  in  the  whole  world,  himself 
and  God,  for  as  to  this  outward  scene,  its 
pleasures  and  pursuits,  its  honors  and  cares, 
its  contrivances,  its  personages,  its  kingdoms, 
its  multitude  of  busy  slaves,  what  are  they  to 
us?  Nothing;  no  more  than  a  show.  Even 
those  near  and  dear,  our  friends  and  kinsfolk, 
whom  we  do  right  to  love,  they  can  not  get 
at  our  souls  or  enter  into  our  thoughts,  so 
that  even  they  vanish  before  the  clear  vision 
we  have,  first,  of  our  existence,  next  of  the 
presence  of  the  great  God  in  us  and  over  us 
as  our  governor  and  judge,  who  dwells  in  us 
by  our  conscience,  which  is  His  representa- 
tive.' You  will  easily  guess  where  those 
words  come  from.  Raffaelle  is  said  to  have 
thanked  God  that  he  lived  in  the  days  of 
Michael  Angelo;  there  are  scores  of  men  I 
know,  there  are  hundreds  and  thousands  I 
believe,  who  thank  God  that  they  have  lived 
in   the   days   of  John   Henry  Newman."      I 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  113 

think  it  a  fitting  close  to  these  hastily  written 
recollections  to  link  together  the  names  of 
these  three  friends — Arnold,  Newman  and 
Coleridge — and  to  quote  a  passage  from  Mr. 
Arnold's  address  delivered  in  this  country  on 
Emerson.      He  began  it  as  follows: 

"Forty  years  ago,  when  I  was  an  undergraduate  at 
Oxford,  voices  were  in  the  air  there  which  haunt  my 
memory  still.  Happy  the  man  who  in  that  suscepti- 
ble season  of  youth  hears  such  voices!  They  are  a 
possession  to  him  forever.  No  such  voices  as  those 
which  we  heard  in  our  youth  at  Oxford  are  sounding 
there  now.  Oxford  has  more  criticism  now,  more 
knowledge,  more  light,  but  such  voices  as  those  of  our 
youth  it  has  no  longer.  The  name  of  Cardinal  New- 
man is  a  great  name  in  imagination  still;  his  genius 
and  his  style  are  still  things  of  power.  But  he  is  over 
eighty  years  old;  he  is  in  the  oratory  at  Birmingham; 
he  has  adopted  for  the  doubts  and  difficvilties  which 
beset  men's  minds  to-day  a  solution  which,  to  speak 
frankly,  is  impossible.  Forty  years  ago  he  was  in  the 
very  prime  of  life;  he  was  close  at  hand  to  us  at  Ox- 
ford; he  was  preaching  in  St.  Mary's  pulpit  every 
Sunday;  he  seemed  about  to  transform  and  to  renew 
what  was  for  us  the  most  national  and  rational  institu- 
tion in  the  world,  the  Church  of  England.  Who  could 
resist  the  charm  of  that  spiritual  apparition,  gliding  in 
the  dim  afternoon  light  through  the  aisles  of  St.  Mary's, 
rising  into  the  pulpit,  and  then,  in  the  most  entrancing 
of  voices,  breaking  the  silence  with  words  and  thoughts 
which  were  a  religious  music,  subtle,  sweet,  mournful.? 


114  LORD  COLERIDGE. 

I  seem  to  hear  him  still  saying,  "After  the  fever  of  life, 
after  wearinesses  and  sicknesses,  fightings  and  despond- 
ings,  languor  and  fretfulness,  struggling  and  succeed- 
ing; after  all  the  changes  and  chances  of  this  troubled, 
unhealthy  state — at  length  comes  death;  at  length  the 
white  throne  of  God,  at  length  the  beatific  vision." 

Verily,  these  three  were  lovely  and  pleasant 
in  their  lives,  and  together  I  doubt  not  they 
are  enjoying  the  beatific  vision. 


APPENDIX. 


LORD  COLERIDGE    ON  MATTHEW 

ARNOLD. 

From  the  London  Times  of  November  2,  1891. 

A  BUST  of  the  late  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  by 
Mr.  Bruce  Joy,  the  sculptor  of  the  Bright 
statue  recently  erected  at  Manchester,  was 
unveiled  by  Lord  Coleridge  on  Saturday  in 
the  Baptistery  of  Westminster  Abbey.  Be- 
fore the  ceremony  a  large  number  of  the 
friends  and  admirers  of  the  man  filled  to  over- 
flowing the  Jerusalem  Chamber,  among  them 
being  many  members  of  the  Arnold  family. 
Besides  the  Dean  of  Westminster  and  Lord 
and  Lady  Coleridge,  there  were  present  Mrs. 
Matthew  Arnold  and  Miss  Arnold,  Mrs.  W. 
E.  Forster,  Mr.  R.  Arnold,  Mr.  Edwin  Ar- 
nold, Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  Arnold,  General 
and  Mrs.  Benson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Whitridge, 
the  Hon.   Armine  Woodhouse,  Mr.  Oakley 

(117) 


ii8  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Arnold-Forster,  Mr.  W.  Wood,  Mr.  A.  Wood, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  Cropper,  Mrs.  Edward  Wing- 
field,  Constance  Marchioness  of  Lothian,  the 
Earl  and  Countess  of  Pembroke,  the  Dow- 
ager Lady  Stanley  of  Alderley,  Lord  Han- 
nen,  Lord  Shand,  Lord  Hobhouse,  Lord  and 
Lady  Sandford,  Mr.  John  Morley,  M.  P.  ; 
Mr.  Osborne  Morgan,  M.  P.;  Mr.  Cyril 
Flower,  M.  P. ;  Sir  C.  Butt,  Sir  G.  F.  Bowen, 
Mr.  Lyulph  Stanley,  Mrs.  Farrar,  Mr.  Ham- 
ilton Aide,  Mr.  George  Russell  (honorary 
Secretary  of  the  Memorial  Committee),  Canon 
Duckworth,  Canon  Ronsell,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Al- 
ton, the  Rev.  R.  J.  Simpson,  and  Mr.  Bruce 
Joy. 

The  Dean  of  Westminster  said :  As  one 
on  whom  the  responsibility  of  adding  to  the 
memorials  in  the  Abbey  that  of  one  whose 
name  is  dear  to  many  here,  I  maybe  allowed 
to  say  one  or  two  words.  The  responsibility 
is  often  a  perilous  and  an  anxious  one.  In 
this  case  I  have  accepted  it;  I  discharge  it 
with  the  advice  and  help  of  those  who  are 
better  qualified  than  myself  to  judge,  and  I 
have  decided  cheerfully  and  unhesitatingly. 
I   may  say  at  once   that   I  felt  the  danger  of 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  119 

my  being  biased  by  my  long  intercourse  and 
intimacy — dating  back  to  the  time  when  I 
was  a  new  boy  at  Rugby — with  Matthew  Ar- 
nold. I  do  not  care  to  dwell  on  the  close- 
ness of  that  intimacy  when  we  were  boys,  but 
this  I  may  say — that  as  years  went  by,  though 
our  paths  in  life  and  our  occupations  were 
different,  to  say  nothing  of  our  gifts, — and  I 
would  not  venture  for  a  moment  to  compare 
myself  with  him — yet  year  by  year  I  learnt  to 
form  an  increasingly  higher  idea  of  his  gifts 
and  his  genius  as  a  poet.  I  am  sure  that  it 
is  not  merely  as  an  early  friend,  not  merely 
from  the  thought  of  what  I  feel  would  be  the 
judgment  of  my  dear  and  illustrious  predeces- 
sor, that  I  rejoice  in  thinking  that  in  that  se- 
questered, yet  most  interesting  corner  of  this 
great  fabric,  some  memorial  will  be  placed 
of  him  whom  so  many  of  us  join  in  honoring. 
I  feel  confident,  so  far  as  we  may  speak  at 
present,  that  future  generations  will  not  for- 
get the  works  of  one  who  has  painted,  though 
in  the  colors  of  his  own  age,  the  eternal 
thoughts  and  emotions  of  the  human  spirit,  in 
such  stately  rhythm  as  appealed  to  so  many 
of  the  highest  feelings  of  the  heart.   I  can  not 


I20  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

for  a  moment  think  that  the  author  of  the 
' '  Scholar  Gipsy, "  of  "  Thyrsis/ '  of  "  Rugby 
Chapel,"  of  the  "  Good  Shepherd  Carrying 
the  Kid," — and  how  many  more  could  I  add? 
— will  be  neglected  by  thoughtful  men  among 
generations  to  come.  I  must  not  detain  you 
long.  You  have  come  here  to  listen  to  one 
who,  himself  the  inheritor  of  a  great  poetic 
name,  would  have  been  listened  to  more  than 
half  a  century  ago  as  he  will  be  listened  to 
to-day.  In  vv^hat  circle  of  his  contemporaries 
is  he  not  listened  to?  But  if  I  may  add  one 
incident,  one  reminiscence  that  this  bright 
autumnal  day  has  brought  to  my  mind,  I 
think  it  might  interest  some  here.  Nearly  fifty- 
two  years  ago,  on  a  visit  to  his  father's  home 
among  the  lakes  and  mountains  of  Westmore- 
land, from  my  own  father's  home,  which  lay 
in  what  is  now  a  crowded  suburb  of  London, 
I  was  one  of  the  youngest  of  a  group  who 
walked  from  Fox  How  by  Rydal,  calling  at  the 
Mount  by  Grasmere,  and  home  again  on  the 
other  side  of  the  lake.  The  group  was  com- 
posed of  men  and  boys  who  were  just  on  the 
threshold  of  opening  manhood.  We  were  led 
by    Thomas    Arnold,   who  sleeps    in   Rugby 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  121 

Chapel,  by  William  Wordsworth,  whose 
grave  is  among  his  own  mountains,  and  by 
Frederick  Faber,  who  lies  not  far  off  from 
what  was  then  wooded  and  almost  rural  Sy- 
denham. Of  the  young  men — five  or  six  of 
them  who  were  in  the  group — I  am  almost  the 
only  survivor,  and  I  remember  well  the  beauty 
and  majesty  of  the  day  and  some  of  the  con- 
versation, both  light  and  serious,  of  those 
with  whom  we  walked.  Strange  we  should 
have  thought  it  then,  if  we  could  have  looked 
far  into  the  future,  that  perhaps  the  frailest  of 
those  young  members  of  the  party  should 
live  to  see  placed  here,  by  the  memorials  of 
William  Wordsworth,  Keble,  and  Charles 
Kingsley,  in  a  corner  of  the  Abbey  whose 
dim  light  is  broken  by  the  hues  of  a  window 
placed  to  recall  the  memory  of  George  Her- 
bert, the  bright  and  jocund  friend  who  that 
day  walked  by  his  side.  I  will  now  ask  to  do 
honor  to  his  memory  one  of  the  very  fore- 
most of  a  group  of  those  scholars  of  Balliol — 
over  which  a  cloud  of  anxiety  and  distress  is 
now  rising — one  of  the  very  foremost  of  a 
group  of  whom  only  two  survive,  and  of 
whom  Matthew  Arnold  was  the  youngest — a 


(  12K        RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

V.„ ...> 

group  portrayed  in  such  touching  colors  by 
J.  C.  Shairp,  when  he  said,  "  I  have  never 
found  nor  expect  to  find  a  more  high-hearted 
brotherhood." 

Lord  Coleridge  said :  I  hope  no  one  will 
think,  because  I  have  yielded  to  a  request 
which  I  could  not,  without  discourtesy,  refuse, 
that  I  suppose  myself  equal  to  appreciating 
the  genius  or  properly  delineating  the  char- 
acter of  Matthew  Arnold.  It  is  because  of 
the  difficulty  of  the  task,  and  from  my  earn- 
est desire  not  to  say  one  word  that  shall  be 
hasty  or  unbecoming,  that  I  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  a  great  man,  Mr.  Lowell,  who  read 
in  the  Chapter-house  of  Westminster  what  he 
had  to  say  when  he  unveiled  the  bust  of  Cole- 
ridge in  Westminster  Abbey.  I  have,  indeed, 
already  tried  to  say,  in  print,  what  I  felt  about 
my  honored  friend ;  but  I  can  not  suppose 
that  any  of  you  have  read  it,  or,  if  you  have, 
that  you  remember  it ;  and  yet  to  say  it  over 
again  would  be  to  one  man  at  least  very  dull 
and  dreary  work.  Yet  if  I  say  nothing  new, 
what  I  say  shall,  I  hope,  at  least  be  true,  and 
if  it  is  not,  as  it  can  not  be  worthy  of  his 
genius,   it  may  at  least  bear  witness  to  the 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  123 

depth  and  sincerity  of  the  affection  with  which 
he  inspired  his  friends.  We  may  revive  with 
the  dews  of  love  the  fading  flowers  of  memory 
and  twine  them  into  a  wreath  for  hope  to  wear. 
In  the  year  1829  or  1830,  I  am  not  sure 
which,  a  bright  little  fellow  was  put  upon  a 
table  in  a  room  full  of  people  at  Laleham, 
and  recited  with  intelligence  and  effect  Mr. 
Burke's  magnificent  description  of  Hyder 
Ali's  ferocious  desolation  of  the  Carnatic;  in 
the  year  1888  that  bright  boy,  not  one  whit 
less  bright,  scarcely  one  whit  less  youthful, 
for  the  sixty  years  which  had  rolled  away,  was 
laid  to  sleep  in  Laleham  church-yard,  almost 
within  earshot  of  the  room,  which  still  re- 
mains, and  which  one  who  was  there  can 
never  think  of  except  as  illuminated  with 
that  bright  figure,  that  sunny  face.  Of  him, 
more  than  of  most  men,  it  was  true,  as  Dry- 
den  says,  that  men  are  but  children  of  a 
larger  growth,  or,  as  Wordsworth  puts  it  still 
more  profoundly,  the  child  is  father  of  the 
man.  His  was  above  all  things  a  consistent 
life — what  he  was  at  school,  what  he  was  at 
college,  and  till  the  last  moment  of  his  life; 
the  loyal  son  grew  naturally  into  the  loving 


124  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

father,  the  affections  of  his  youth  strength- 
ened and  deepened  into  the  husband's  stead- 
fast love ;  the  clever,  original,  perhaps  way- 
ward, student  and  scholar  became  with  no 
external  change  the  penetrating,  delicate, 
strong,  yet  subtle  critic,  the  refined,  the  pa- 
thetic, the  philosophic,  the  great  poet.  Enough 
has  been  said  elsewhere  of  his  uneventful  yet 
most  interesting  life ;  of  the  gradual  fashion 
in  which  he  overcame  the  sneers,  the  preju- 
dices, the  flippant  judgments  of  men  whose 
words  have  long  since  ceased  to  influence,  if 
they  ever  influenced,  the  opinion  of  men  of 
cultivated,  reflecting,  independent  minds,  who 
think  for  themselves,  and  who  determine  in 
the  last  resort  and  without  appeal  the  perma- 
nent place  of  an  author  in  the  goodly  fellow- 
ship of  his  equals  or  superiors.  It  is,  per- 
haps, too  soon  in  the  case  of  Matthew  Arnold 
for  a  private  man  to  speak  with  confidence  as 
to  his  final  and  conclusive  judgment.  Criti- 
cisms upon  him,  which  to  my  apprehension 
are  altogether  beside  the  mark,  have  appeared 
in  publications  of  some  temporary  authority, 
but  which  have  no  lasting  effect  upon  an  au- 
thor's fame.      Lord  Jeffery  did   his    best  to 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  125 

crush  Wordsworth;   he  injured,  for  a  time, 
the  sale  of  his  poems,  but  he  has  not  affected 
his  fame  in  the  sHghtest  degree — he  has  only 
manifested  his    own  hopeless   incompetence. 
The  Quarterly  Review — I  may  guess,   but  I 
have  no  right  to  name,  the  author — attacked, 
with  brutal  insolence,   the  dying  Keats  and 
the  youthful  Tennyson.     The  Quarterly  Re- 
viewer   is  forgotten;   but    what  Englishman 
questions  the  greatness  of  Tennyson  or  Keats? 
In  Arnold's  case  much  that  has  been  said  will 
be  soon  forgotten ;   that  he  will  be  soon  for- 
gotten every  one  even  moderately  acquainted 
with  him  will  confidently  deny.      I  am  well 
aware  that  my  own  opinion  is  worth  nothing, 
but  to-day  and  here  I  take  the  freedom  to  say 
that  in  a  combination  of   great  qualities  he 
stands    alone  in  his  generation.     Thackeray 
may  have  written  more  pungent  social  satire, 
Tennyson  may  be  a  greater  poet,  John  Mor- 
ley    may  be   a    greater    critical    biographer. 
Cardinal  Newman  may  have  a  more  splendid 
style,  Lightfoot,  or  Ellicott,   or  Jowett  may 
be  greater    ecclesiastical    scholars    and  have 
done  more  for  the  interpretation  of  St.  Paul. 
But  for  a  union  of  the  satirist,  the  poet,  the 


126  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

delineator  of  character,  the  wielder  of  an  ad- 
mirable style,  the  striver  after  the  eternal 
truths  of  Scripture  and  religion,  he  is,  in  my 
judgment,  not  only  nrst,  but  he  is  unique. 
Calling  back  with  the  inexactitude  of  haste 
the  great  names  of  literature,  there  is  one 
man  between  whom  and  Matthew  Arnold  I 
seem  to  see  a  curious  likeness — a  very  great 
man — a  man  not,  I  think,  the  greatest,  but 
the  most  read  and  the  oftenest  quoted  of  all 
Latin  authors ;  I  mean  Horace.  Horace  wrote 
nothing  without  meter — nothing,  at  least,  that 
has  survived  ;  but  he  wrote  in  two  styles — he 
was  a  great  lyric  poet,  and  he  wrote  satires 
and  epistles  in  hexameters,  it  is  true,  but,  ex- 
cept in  a  few  bursts  of  noble  language,  his 
hexameters  were,  as  he  said,  hardly  distin- 
guishable from  prose  itself.  As  a  satirist  he 
has  been  beautifully  described  by  a  successor 
purer  than  himself,  but,  when  we  can  under- 
stand him,  almost  as  gracious  and  refined. 

"  Omne  vafer  vitium  ridenti  Flaccus  amico 
Tangit ;  et  admissus  circum  prcecordia  ludit, 
Callidus  excusso  populum  suspendere  naso." 

— Persius. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  12; 

"And  yet  arch  Horace,  while  he  strove  to  mend, 
Probed  all  the  foibles  of  his  smiling  friend. 
Played  lightly  round  and  round  the  peccant  part, 
And  won,  unfelt,  an  entrance  to  his  heart ; 
Well  skilled  the  follies  of  the  crowd  to  trace 
And  sneer  v/ith  gay  good  humor  in  his  face." 

— Gifford. 

This,  surely,  might  almost  pass  for  a  de- 
scription of  much  of  Matthew  Arnold's  play- 
ful, well-bred,  humorous  satire — satire,  nev- 
ertheless, severe  and  incisive,  piercing  to  the 
very  quick  the  vulgarity,  the  insolence,  the 
ignorance  of  much  which  in  England  assumes 
to  be  society,  and  powerful  with  the  strength 
of  knowledge  and  the  force  of  truth.  I  do 
not  know  any  other  author  who  holds  the 
mirror  up  to  English  nature  so  steadily  as  he, 
and  yet  always  with  an  air  of  benign,  com- 
placent pity,  infinitely  irritating,  no  doubt, 
but  infinitely  amusing.  But  there  was  an- 
other side  to  both  these  men,  a  side,  perhaps, 
too  little  recognized,  certainly  too  little  dwelt 
upon.  I  waive  the  discussion  whether  Hor- 
ace was  the  greatest  lyrical  writer  whom 
Rome  produced.  When  I  think  of  Catullus 
I  am  glad  to  waive  it.  But  I  think  that  late- 
ly there  has  been  a  disposition  to  underrate 


128  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and,  like  Lord  Byron,  "to  understand,  not 
feel,  his  lyric  flow"  ;  to  forget  the  splendor 
of  some  of  the  odes  and  the  exquisite  pictur- 
esque grace  of  others,  the  ode  on  Cleopatra 
and  the  one  to  Maecenas,  "  Tyrrhena  regum 
progenies,"  in  one  class,  and  thirty  or  forty 
lovely  little  poems  in  the  other.  Let  that 
pass.  In  lyric  poetry  certainly  both  hold  a 
place  all  but  the  highest;  and  there  is  one 
quality  not  perhaps  so  commonly  observed 
in  which  they  are  strikingly  alike — in  melan- 
choly. The  melancholy  of  Matthew  Arnold 
was  noted  long  since  by  Principal  Shairp : 

"Full  of  joung  strength,  so  blithe  and  debonair, 
Rallying  his  friends  with  pleasant  banter  gay, 
Or  half  in  dreams,  chaunting  with  jaunty  air, 
Great  words  of  Goethe,  catch  of  Beranger  ; 
We  meet  the  banter  sparkling  in  his  prose, 
But  knew  not  that  ground  tone  his  songs  disclose. 
The  calm  which  is  not  calm,  but  agony." 

The  melancholy  of  Horace  was  noted  by  Ar- 
nold himself,  and  was  one  strong  reason  for 
the  love  he  felt  for  him.  He  was  asked  what 
he  thought  the  most  beautiful  and  character- 
istic passage  in  Horace,  and  he  answered  at 
once : 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  129 

"  Linquenda  tellus,  et  domus,  et  placens 
Uxor;  neque  harum,  quas  colis,  arborum, 
Te,  prreter  invisas  cupressos, 

Ulla  brevem  dominum  sequetur."* 

I  can  not  translate  off-hand,  and  Francis  is 
detestable.  Another  passage  I  know  was  his 
especial  favorite,  not  only  for  its  exquisite 
music,  but  for  its  profound  sadness: 

"Damna  tamen  celeres  reparant  cselestia  Luns: 

Nos,  ubi  decidimus 
Quo  pius  ^^neas,  qu6  Tullus  dives,  et  Ancus, 

Pulvis  et  umbra  sumus. 
Quis  scit  an  adjiciant  hodiernae  crastina  summse 

Tempora  Di  superi  ? 
Cuncta  manus  avidas  fugient  heredis,  amico 

Quae  dederis  animo. 
Cum  semel  occideris,  et  de  te  splendida  Minos 

Fecerit  arbitria  ; 
Non,  Torquate,  genus,  non  te  facundia,  non  te 

Restituet  pietas."  f 


*Mr.  Gladstone  translates  : 

Earth,  home,  and  winsome  wife,  thy  fate 
Will  have  thee  leave  ;  and  not  one  tree 

Of  all,  save  cypress  that  we  hate, 
O  transient  lord,  shall  follow  thee. 

—  Carm.  it:  I4. 

fMr.  Gladstone  translates  : 

The  hastening  moons  all  waste  in  heaven  repair 

We,  when  we  once  descend 
To  Tullus,  Ancus,  sire  ySneas,  there 

In  dust  and  shadow  end. 


130  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

There  is  another  matter  in  which  they  sympa- 
thized entirely — the  love  of  the  country.  Fit 
to  adorn  and  fond  of  adorning  those  chosen 
companies  which  were  fortunate  enough  to 
secure  his  presence,  Matthew  Arnold  lived 
habitually,  quite  as  much  by  choice  as  by 
necessity,  away  from  London,  and  even  when 
he  took  for  a  time  a  London  house,  he  would 
go  down  from  time  to  time  for  a  day  into  the 
country,  simply  to  refresh  himself  with  a  sight 
of  his  dogs,  his  birds,  his  trees,  his  flowers, 
and  all  those  sights  of  fields  and  sky  which 
he  needed  to  revive  his  spirits  and  keep  his 
mind  in  tune.  In  this  he  was  human,  natural, 
simple,  and,  let  me  add,  like  Horace,  who 
has  been   described  by  a  great  poet  in  Ian- 


Will  the  gods  grant  a  morrow  for  to-daj  ? 

No  mortal  can  declare  ; 
Give  !  all  thou  giv'st  with  open  hand  awaj 

Escapes  thy  greedy  heir. 

Once  thou  art  dead,  once  Minos  on  his  bench 

Thy  doom  for  thee  hath  writ, 
Birth,  eloquence,  devotion,  nought  can  wrench 

Thy  spirit  from  the  pit. 

—  Carm.  iv:  7. 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  131 

guage,  much  of  which  might  be  appHed  to 
him  whom  we  have  met  this  day  to  honor. 

"  That  life — the  flowery  path  that  winds  by  stealth — 

Which  Horace  needed  for  his  spirits'  health  ; 

Sighed  for,  in  heart  and  genius,  overcome 

By  noise  and  strife,  and  questions  wearisome, 

And  the  vain  splendors  of  Imperial  Rome!  — 

Let  easy  mirth  his  social  hours  inspire, 

And  fiction  animate  his  sportive  lyre. 

Attuned  to  verse  that,  crowning  light  Distress 

With  garlands,  cheats  her  into  happiness  ; 

Give  "me"  the  humblest  note  of  those  sad  strains 

Drawn  forth  by  pressure  of  his  gilded  chains. 

As  a  chance  sun-beam  from  his  memory  fell 

Upon  the  Sabine  farm  he  loved  so  well; 

Or  when  the  prattle  of  Bandusia's  spring 

Haunted  his  ear — he  only  listening — 

He,  proud  to  please,  above  all  rivals,  fit 

To  win  the  palm  of  gaiety  and  wit. 

He,  doubt  not,  with  involuntary  dread, 

Shrinking  from  each  new  favor  to  be  shed, 

By  the  world's  Ruler,  on  his  honored  head!" 

But  there  is  one  matter,  at  least,  in  which 
the  superiority  of  the  younger  author  is  un- 
questioned and  unquestionable.  No  word, 
no  thought  in  Matthew  Arnold  is  unworthy 
of  the  austere,  religious  beauty  of  the  great 
Abbey  in  which  for  centuries  his  countenance, 
preserved  to  us  by  fine  art,  will  be  enshrined 


132  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and  where  his  memory  will  enjoy  such  im- 
mortality as  is  possible  on  earth.  Horace 
had  examples  before  him  which  in  this  mat- 
ter he  did  not  follow.  Arnold  had  exam- 
ples, also,  of  a  different  sort  before  him,  from 
whom  he  shrunk  with  disgust  and  scorn.  No 
nobler  nature,  no  purer  mind,  no  loftier  char- 
acter has  it  been  in  a  long  life  my  good  for- 
tune to  know.  Envy,  jealousy,  meanness 
were  unknown  to  him  ;  they  withered  in  his 
presence.  His  writings  were  but  a  revelation 
of  himself — now  playful,  now  serious,  always 
aiming  at  making  the  world  better  and  man- 
kind happier.  And,  now,  to  unveil  his  like- 
ness and  leave  him  among  the  graves  and 
monuments  of  England's  greatest  men  in  that 
magnificent  church  of  which  it  may  be  said 
that  they  dreamt  not  of  a  perishable  home 
who  thus  could  build.  Let  your  own  memo- 
ries pay  a  nobler  tribute  to  Matthew  Arnold 
than  his  oldest  friend  has  been  able  to  ren- 
der. 

The  company  then  went  to  the  Baptistery, 
where,  on  the  invitation  of  the  Dean,  the 
bust  was  unveiled  by  Lord  Coleridge.     It  is 


LORD  COLERIDGE.  133 

considered  an  admirable  likeness.  As  the 
Baptistery  is  a  place  which  is  rather  hidden 
away  by  some  gigantic  monuments  and  may 
easily  escape  the  notice  of  the  visitor  to  a  place 
where  there  are  so  many  things  to  attract  at- 
tention, it  may  be  well  to  mention  that  it  is 
to  be  found  immediately  on  the  right  of  the 
west  door.  It  is  a  little  square  nook  which 
one  would  never  think  had  anything  in  it, 
but  within  is  a  statue  of  Wordsworth,  for 
which  no  room  could  be  found  in  Poets'  Cor- 
ner, and  which,  perhaps,  not  one  in  a  hun- 
dred of  the  visitors  to  the  Abbey  has  ever 
seen,  and  there  are  also  a  medallion  of  Pro- 
fessor Fawcett  with  allegorical  figures,  and 
busts  of  Keble,  Charles  Kingsley,  and  Fred- 
erick Denison  Maurice.  The  bust  of  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  which,  like  the  other  busts,  is 
of  pure  Carrara  marble,  stands  between  those 
of  Kingsley  and  Maurice,  and  right  opposite 
to  that  of  Keble.  The  most  suitable  time 
for  seeing  the  bust  is  from  i  to  2  o'clock. 


The  following  extract  is  from  *The  Peerage, 
Baronetage  a7id  Knightage  of  the  British  Em^ 
pire.     By  Joseph  Foster. 

John  Duke  Coleridge,  Baron  Coleridge, 
of  Ottery  St.  Mary,  Devon,  in  the  Peerage 
of  the  United  Kingdom,  so  created  January 
10,  1874,  Privy  Councilor,  Chief-Justice  of 
the  common  pleas  June,  1873,  barrlster-at- 
law  M.  T.  1847,  Queen's  Counsel  1861  ; 
Recorder  of  Portsmouth  1855-65,  Solicitor 
General  1868-71,  Attorney  General  1871-73, 
member  of  Parliament  for  Exeter  1865-73, 
Lord  Chief-Justice  1880;    born  December  3, 

1820;    died  June  14,   1894. 

Arms. — Arg.  on  a  mount  vert  in  base  an  otter  ppr. 
a  chief  gu.  charged  with  a  dove  of  the  field  between 
two  crosses  pattee  fitch^e  or. 

Crest. — On  a  mount  vert  therefrom  issuing  ears 
of  wheat  ppr.  in  front  of  a  cross  gu.  an  otter  also  ppr. 

Supporters. — Dexter,  an  otter  ppr.  Sinister,  a 
lion  sa.  each  accolled  with  a  garland  of  roses  ppr. 

Motto. — Time  Deum  cole  regem. 

Seat. — Heath's  Court    Ottery  St.  Marj. 

Town  House. — i,  Sussex  Square,  W. 


^Printed  and  published  for  the  compiler  by  Nichols 
&  Sons,  Westminster. 

(134) 


FAC-SIMILE  OF 

A  LETTER  FROM  LORD  COLERIDGE 

TO  W.  P.  FISH  BACK.  ESQ. 


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C^^tT^^-'^Jft^ly/t^ 


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IRecent 
publicatione 


THE  BOWEhl'MERRlLL  CO- 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY 
1895 


Milliam  1b.  JBmlisb 

The  Conquest  of  the  Northwest 
1778=1783,  and  Life  of 
General  Geo.  Rogers  Clark 

Hon.  William  H.  English,  whose  name  fif- 
teen years  ago  was  on  every  tongue,  and  who 
stood  with  General  Hancock  as  the  standard- 
bearer  of  the  Democracy,  has  become  equally- 
famous  throughout  the  West  and  South  dur- 
ing the  last  decade  as  an  antiquarian  and  col- 
lector of  Americana. 

After  a  quarter  century  of  research,  the  dis- 
tinguished statesman  now  publishes  a  re- 
markable narrative  of  our  contest  with  the 
British  (1778-S3),  for  the  mastery  and  ulti- 
mate possession  "  of  the  country  northwest 
of  the  River  Ohio."  His  collection  of  his- 
torical material  relating  to  this  romantic  con- 
quest  is  probably  the  largest  extant. 

Embodied  in  the  work  is  the  only  complete 
life  of  General  George  Rogers  Clark. 

Sold  by  subscription.  In  two  volvimes, 
octavo,  on  fine  paper,  handsomely  bound, 
with  numerous  illustrations;  reproductions 
of  rare  portraits,  paintings  and  ancient  land- 
marks; fac-si7niles  of  historical  documents, 
letters,  maps,  etc.  Price  for  the  set,  .$6.00  net, 
delivered  to  any  address,express  prepaid  by  us. 

THE  BOIVEN-MERRILL  CO. 
WDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


Ube  morfts  of 

James  Mbttcomb  IRile^ 

Armazindy 

Contains  some  of  Mr.  Riley's  latest  and  best 
dialect  and  serious  work,  including  "Arma- 
zindy" and  the  famous  Poe  Poem.  f2mo. 
cloth,  uniform  with  his  other  books,  $1.25; 
half  calf,  $2.50;  full  morocco,  .$5.00. 


"Mr.  Rilev's  new  book  of  poems,  "Arma- 
zindy," includes  verses  in  dialect  and  verses 
in  straight  English,  verses  to  touch  the  heart 
and  verses  to  tickle  the  ribs,  verses  of  homely 
sentiment,  and  nonsense  verses  which  are 
truly  reckless  and  altogether  delightful.  'Ar- 
mazindy' is  a  characteristic  poem  in  the 
Hoosier  dialect,  and  there  are  some  seventy 
other  poems,  and  one  prose  sketch  written 
after  the  style  of  Dickens." — Current  His- 
tory. 

James  Whitcomb  Riley's  simple  verse  has 
won  a  lasting  place  in  the  hearts  of  old  and 
young,  and  the  reasons  for  this  are  plain.  He 
has  a  quick  and  fine  appreciation  of  the  beau- 
ties of  what  might  seem  to  some  only  the 
commonplace  and  humdrum  side  of  nature, 
and  he  opens  our  eyes  to  see  the  poetry  in  the 
very  things  that  have  seemed  to  us  the  dullest 
of  prose. — Public  Opinion^  Washington^  D.  C. 

THE  BOIVEN-MERRILL  CO. 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


Ube  Wiov^5  of 

James  Mbttcomb  IRtlei^ 

Green  Fields  and  Running  Brooks 

One  hundred  and  two  poems  and  sonnets, 
dialect,  humorous  and  serious.  i2mo.  cloth, 
$1.25;  half  calf,  $2.50;  full  morocco,  $5.00, 


Green  Fields  and  Running  Brooks 
is  the  latest  volume  of  James  Whitcomb 
Riley's  poems  we  receive  from  the  Bowen- 
Merrill  Company',  of  Indianapolis.  It  is  an 
enticing  title,  and  its  promise  and  allurement 
is  well  fulfilled  in  its  pages.  Mr.  Rilej  is  a 
singer  by  nature,  and  of  nature  human  and 
extrahuman,  and  he  has  given  no  truer  and 
sweeter  songs  to  us  than  are  in  this  book, — ■ 
Republican^  Springfield. 

Under  the  pretty  title.  Green  Fields  and 
Running  Brooks — a  phrase  which  almost 
insists  on  continuing  itself  into  "  Sermons 
in  Stones" — the  most  recent  productions  of 
James  Whitcomb  Riley  come  to  us,  and  prove 
the  Hoosier  bard  to  be  very  prolific,  as  well 
as  a  very  sweet  singer.^ — Christian  Union, 
New  York. 


THE  BOlVEhI'MERRILL  CO, 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


Zbc  WiovWs  ot 

James  Mbttcomb  IRile^ 

The  Flying  Islands  of  the  Night 

A  weird  and  grotesque  drama  in  verse. 
Fantastic,  quaint  and  ingenious.  i2mo.  cloth, 
$1.25;  half  calf,  $2.50;  full  morocco,  $5.00. 


As  the  author  states,  this  is  "Thynge  of 
Wytchencrof — an  Idle  Dreme."  This  latest 
production  of  the  popular  Western  author 
is  a  dramatic  poem  in  three  acts.  The  verse, 
while  being  neither  heroic  nor  lyric,  partakes 
of  the  character  of  both.  The  entire  poem  is 
of  the  nature  of  a  burlesque  epic. — Philadel- 
fhia  Item. 

A  weird  and  grotesque  drama  in  verse. 
In  this  book  Mr.  Riley's  peculiar  genius  dis- 
plays a  force  and  continuity  not  intimated  in 
any  previous  work.  The  argument  and  plot 
are  radically  different  from  any  known  drama, 
fantastical  in  the  highest  degree,  and  beyond 
question,  his  most  remarkably  quaint  and 
peculiar  work,  since  in  it  he  displays  a  spirit 
of  ingenuity  together  with  a  depth  and  height 
of  imagination  that  his  work  has  never  hith- 
erto suggested. — Baltitnore  Nevus, 

THE  BOIVEN-MERRILL  CO. 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


Zbc  morfts  ot 

James  Mbitcomb  1RUe^ 

Rhymes  of  Childhood 

One  hundred  and  two  dialect  and  serious 
poems.  Not  for  children  only,  but  of  child- 
hood days,  with  frontispiece.  i2mo.  cloth, 
$1.25;  half  calf,  $2.50;  full  morocco,  $5.00. 


James  Whitcomb  Riley's  Rhymes  of 
Childhood  would  be  pronounced  as  ad- 
dressed to  grown  people,  rather  than  to  chil- 
dren of  the  age  and  experience  of  those  whose 
thoughts  and  feelings  figure  in  these  pages. 
It  is  a  delightful  book  from  cover  to  cover, 
and  displays  a  rare  insight  into  the  habits  of 
mind  of  the  child.  The  dialect,  too,  is  true  to 
nature,  and  seldom,  if  ever,  overdrawn. — 
Overland  Monthly. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  give  a  hearty  wel- 
come to  this  bundle  of  rhyme,  with  its  tender 
human  love  and  its  irresistible  humor.  Mr, 
Riley,  at  his  best  and  in  his  narrow  but  at- 
tractive field,  is  inimitable.  No  poet  since 
Burns  has  sung  so  close  to  the  ear  of  the  com- 
mon people  of  the  country.  His  "  Hoosier" 
lyrics  and  his  Rhymes  of  Childhood  come 
very  near  to  the  line  of  perfection. — New 
2'ork  Indepetident, 

THE  BOIVEN-MERRILL  CO. 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


James  Mbttcomb  1Rile^ 

Pipes  o'  Pan 

Five  sketches  and  fifty  poems.  The  sketches 
are  separated  by  four  books  of  twelve  poems 
each,  with  frontispiece.  i2mo.  cloth,  $1.25; 
half  calf,  $2.50;  full  morocco,  $5.00. 

His  work  in  prose  is  really  exquisite,  though 
comparatively  few  are  acquainted  with  it. 
Here  is  the  conclusion  of  one  of  his  tales, 
published  in  the  "Pipes  o'  Pan  at  Zekes- 
bury."  It  is  as  simply  natural  as  fact,  as 
delicate  as  truth.  It  is  at  once  so  probable 
and  so  artistic  that  no  one  would  venture  to 
guess  whether  the  writer  created  the  incident 
or  whether  the  incident  created  the  tale. 
Here  it  is: 

"  Well,  Annie  had  just  stooped  to  lift  up 
one  o'  the  little  girls  when  the  feller  turned, 
and  the'r  eyes  met.  'Annie,  my  wife!'  he 
says:  and  Annie,  she  kind  o'  gave  a  little  yelp 
like,  and  come  a  flutterin'  down  in  his  arms, 
and  the  jvig  of  worter  rolled  clean  acrost  the 
road,  and  turned  a  somerset  and  knocked  the 
cob  out  of  its  mouth,  and  jist  laid  back  and 
hollered  'good-good-good-good-good!'  like  ef 
it  knowed  what  was  up,  and  was  jist  as  glad 
and  tickled  as  the  rest  of  us." — Omaha  World- 
Herald. 

THE  BQWEl^-MERRlLl  CO. 
nmiANAPOUS  y4ND 
KANSAS  CITY, 


James  Mbitcomb  IRile^ 

Afterwhiles 

Sixty-two  poems  and  sonnets,  serious, 
pathetic,  humorous  and  dialect,  with  frontis- 
piece. i2mo.  cloth,  $1.25;  half  calf,  $2.50; 
full  morocco,  $5.00. 

It  is  easy,  from  his  book  of  poems,  After- 
whiles,  to  see  how  the  work  of  Mr.  James 
Whitcomb  Riley  has  grown  so  widely  popu- 
lar in  the  United  States.  Mostly  his  verse 
resembles  Poe.  But  much  more  than  that 
author  he  gives  expression  to  the  child-like 
simplicity  which  distinguishes  Brother  Jona- 
than among  the  nations  in  all  matters  of  art. 
The  poems  in  dialect  are  more  enjoyable  than 
the  others  for  their  humor  and  character. — 
T/ie  Scotsmafi,  Edirihurg. 

Mr.  Riley  has  discovered  the  essential 
beauty  of  nature  in  the  fields,  and  of  pathos 
and  sentiment  in  the  heart  of  man,  and  has 
interpreted  it  with  a  fidelity  and  simplicity 
which  will  make  his  poetry  live  long  after 
the  elegant  transcription  from  books  and  the 
inspirations  from  foreign  life  have  faded  away 
into  the  nothingness  which  is  the  doom  of  all 
artificial  and  imitation. — Providence  Jour- 
nal. 

THE  BOIVEN- MERRILL  CO, 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


XTbe  Mor[?s  ot 

James  Mbitcomb  IRtle^ 

Sketches  in  Prose 

Originally  published  as  "The  Boss  Girl 
AND  Other  Stories."  Twelve  graphic 
stories,  each  prefaced  by  a  poem.  i2mo. 
cloth,  $1.25;  half  calf,  $2.50;  full  morocco, 
$5.00. 

When  Mr.  Riley  publishes  a  new  book  the 
people  who  read  rejoice.  This  last  volume  of 
his  is  as  refreshing  as  a  May  morning,  and  is 
full  of  charming  pen  pictures,  dair.ty  bits  of 
landscapes,  homelike  turnings  of  white  paths 
through  green  fields  are  suggested  with  an 
almost  pathetic  vividness.  There  are  some 
more  of  his  delightful  child  studies,  the  merit 
of  which  lies  somewhat  in  the  w^onderful 
child  dialect,  but  mainly  in  the  accurate  and 
true  interpretation  of  child-character.  The 
poet  understands  the  child  perfectly,  and 
places  himself  before  us  with  absolute  justice 
and  a  splendid  sjmipathy  for  his  most  child- 
ish whims.  Mr.  Riley  has  discovered  child- 
lore,  and  he  has  shown  the  true  child-lore, 
and  made  us  see  the  relation  between  it  and 
folk-lore. — Nassau  Library  Magazine, 


THE  BOIVE}^- MERRILL  CO. 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


XTbe  morfts  of 

5ames  mbitcomb  IRile^ 

Neghborly  Poems 

Thirty-six  poems  in  Hoosier  dialect,  includ- 
ing "  The  Old  Swimmin'  Hole  and  '  Leven 
More  Poems,  by  Benjamin  F.  Johnson,  of 
Boone,"  with  eight  half-tone  illustrations. 
i2mo.  cloth,  $1.25;  half  calf,  $2.50;  full  mo- 
rocco, $5.00. 

Benjamin  F.  Johnson,  of  Boone — a  "rare 
Ben  Johnson,"  indeed — fathered  these  cute 
country  whims,  some  of  the  best  that  the 
truest  poet  of  to-day  has  given  the  world,  in 
the  quaint  dressing' of  the  Hoosier  dialect. — 
Evening  News,  Buffalo, 

The  poems  included  in  this  neat  volume  are 
idiomatic,  droll  and  charming.  They  depict 
common  things  in  an  unusually  natural  way 
and  touch  many  sympathetic  chords. — The 
Treasury,  New  York. 

Mr.  Riley,  more  than  any  other  American 
poet  who  has  essayed  this  style  of  poetic 
writing,  has  enriched  this  peculiar  field  with 
gems  that  will  constitute  a  permanent  part 
of  our  literature. — Omaha  Bee. 

THE  BOW  EN- MERRILL  CO. 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


Ube  Morl^s  of 

5ames  Mbitcoml)  IRile^ 

An  Old  Sweetheart  of  Mine 

Illustrated  with  colored  and  monotint  plates. 
The  engravings  are  by  the  best  artists  of  Bos- 
ton, and  the  book  is  handsoinelj  bound  in 
cloth.  This  favorite  poem,  so  thoroughly  en- 
joyed by  the  thousands  of  Mr.  Riley's  admir- 
ers, has  been  sympathetically  sketched  and 
portrayed  with  such  artistic  skill  as  to  make 
it  one  of  the  most  beautiful  books  yet  pub- 
lished. IOXI2  flat  quarto,  colored  and  mono- 
tint plates,  combination  cloth,  fall  gilt,  $2.50. 


Among  the  daintiest  of  dainty  holiday 
books  is  the  gift  edition  of  James  Whitcomb 
Riley's  An  Old  Sweetheart  of  Mine. 
The  text  is  in  quaint  lettering,  with  every 
page  enriched  by  pretty  designs  from  pen  and 
brush. — Baltiviore  A  merican. 

Each  stanza  fills  a  page,  and  is  accompanied 
by  an  exquisite  illustration.  The  paper,  let- 
ter press,  binding  and  illustrations  are  all  of 
the  finest,  and  the  whole  is  an  excellent  speci- 
men of  the  bookmaker's  art,  and  forms  a  fit 
setting  for  a  poetic  gem  of  the  first  water. — 
Indianafolis  Sentinel. 


THE  BOIVEN-MERRJLL  CO. 
WDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


James  Mbitcomb  IRtle^ 

Old  Fashioned  Roses 

Sixty-one  selected  poems  and  sonnets,  pub- 
lished in  England.  It  is  a  dainty  i6mo. 
printed  on  hand-made  paper,  with  untrimmed 
edges,  gilt  top,  and  very  tastefully  bound  in 
blue  and  white  cloth.  It  contains  a  great 
variety  of  serious,  humorous  and  dialect 
pieces,  and  makes  a  handsome  presentation 
edition  of  some  of  Mr.  Riley's  choicest  poems. 
i6mo.  cloth,  gilt  top,  untrimmed,  $1.75. 


The  first  thing  that  strikes  the  reader  with 
James  Whitcomb  Riley  is  his  originality. 
Here,  evidently,  is  a  man  who  would  have 
felt  the  impulse  to  speak  tunefully  and  to 
touch  the  springs  of  humor  and  of  pathos  had 
he  lived  before  the  invention  of  alphabets. 
In  the  absence  of  books,  the  lessons  to  be 
drawn  from  nature  and  from  human  life 
would  have  sufficed.  With  his  own  hand  has 
been  garnered  his  knowledge  of  the  outer 
and  of  the  inner  world.  He  has  seen  with 
lis  own  eyes,  listened  with  his  own  ears, 
known  in  his  own  heart  the  sorrows  and  joys 
that  he  depicted.  His  landscapes  are  tran- 
scripts of  his  native  woods  and  fields. — JVeiv 
Tork  Suti. 

THE  BO JVEN- MERRILL  CO. 
WDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


IRicbart)  Wi.  Xlbompson 

Personal  Recollections 
Washington  to  Lincoln. 

Including  the  administrations  of  sixteen  Presidents  of 
the  United  States. 


Col.  Richard  W.  Thompson  has  known 
personally  every  President  of  the  United 
States  but  the  first  two,  Washington  and 
John  Adams,  and  also  many  leaders  of  the 
American  Revolution,  among  them  being 
Lafaj'ette.  He  knew  Jefferson  sixty-seven 
years  ago,  and  was  present  at  the  inaugura- 
tion of  Andrew  Jackson.  He  was  president 
of  the  famous  Panama  Comndssion,  is  the 
oldest  living  member  of  Congress  but  one, 
and  during  the  administration  of  Hayes  he 
entered  the  cabinet  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
At  the  close  of  this  long  and  brilliant  career, 
Col.  Thompson  has  given  to  the  world  his 
own  personal  recollections  of  the  Presidents, 
in  which  he  does  not  refer  to  documents,  but 
draws  entirely  upon  the  wonderful  resources 
of  his  memory.  It  is  remarkably  full  and 
accurate  as  to  the  origin  and  growth  of  po- 
litical parties. 

Bound  in  Buckram,  gilt  top,  with  numerous 
full  page  portraits  in  photogravure.  Edition 
de  Luxe.,  2  vols.,  buckram,  $6;  half  leather, 
$8;  half  calf,  $9;  full  leather,  $12. 

THE  BOJVEN-MERRILL  CO, 
WDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


f  uMana  ibistortcal  society 
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Pamphlets 

No.  I.  The  Laws  and  Courts  of  North- 
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Waite  Howe. 

No.  2.  The  Life  and  Services  of  John  B. 
Dillon.  Bj  Gen.  John  Coburn  and  Judge 
Horace  P.  Biddle. 

No.  3.  The  Acquisition  of  Louisiana,  By 
Judge  Thomas  M.  Cooley. 

No.  4.  Loughery's  Defeat  and  Pigeon 
Roost  Massacre.     By  Charles  Martindale. 

No.  5.  A  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  the  of- 
ficial Publications  of  the  Territory  and  State 
of  Indiana  from  1800  to  1890.  By  Daniel 
Waite  Howe. 

No.  6.  The  Rank  of  Charles  Osborn  as  an 
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No.  7.  The  Man  in  History.  By  John 
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No.  9.  Reminiscences  of  a  Journey  to  In- 
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Life  of  Ziba  Foote.     By  Samuel  Morrison. 

No.  10.  "Old  Settlers."  By  Robert  B. 
Duncan. 

No.  II.  French  Settlements  on  the  Wa- 
bash.    By  Jacob  Piatt  Dunn. 

No.  12.  Slavery  Petitions  and  Papers.  By 
Jacob  Piatt  Dunn. 

No.  13.  History  of  Early  Indianapolis 
Masonry.     By  Hon.  Will  E.  English. 

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The  papers  mentioned  on  the  preceding 
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The  publishers  are  also  reprinting  the  So- 
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will  be  uniform  in  size  and  binding  with  the 
one  just  issued  and  described  in  this  circular. 
Price,  $4.25.  Sent  by  express  paid,  to  any 
address,  on  receipt  of  the  price  by  the  pub- 
lishers. 


THE  BOIVEN-MERRILL  CO. 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


1Ricbar^  /iDatcolm  Sobnston 


studies ;  Literary  and  Social 

First  Series,  i2mo,  cloth,  $1.25, 

Includes  the  following  essays:  The  School- 
master; The  Legal  Profession;  Belisarius; 
George  Eliot's  Married  People;  Louise,  Ba- 
ronne  de  Stael-Holstein;  Pre- American  Phi- 
losophy; American  Philosoph}';  The  Deli- 
cacy of  Shakespeare;  Shakespeare's  Tragic 
Lovers, 


Col.  Richard  Malcolm  Johnston  has  writ- 
ten much  that  is  brilliant  and  permanent,  but 
he  has  done  nothing  better  than  "  Studies, 
Literary  and  Social,"  a  delightfully  clear  and 
artistically  printed  volume  that  comes  froin 
the  presses  of  The  Bowen-Merrill  Company, 
of  Indianapolis.  It  is  entertaining,  instruc- 
tive and  enjoyable  throughout,  and  everyone 
who  reads  it  will  be  delighted  by  its  charin 
and  excellence,  and  will  be  impressed  by  the 
author's  wide  range  of  knowledge,  and  the 
beaut}^  and  refinement  of  his  mind, — Balti- 
more American. 


THE  BOIVEN'MERRILL  CO. 
INDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


1Rtcbar^  /IDalcolm  Jobnston 

studies ;  Literary  and  Social 

Second  Series,  i2mo,  cloth,  $1.25.  Twovol- 
umes,  boxed,  $2.50. 

Includes  the  following  essays:  Edward 
Hyde's  Daughter;  Benjamin  D'Israeli,  the 
Jew;  A  Characteristic  of  Sir  Thomas  More; 
A  Martyr  to  Science;  Some  Heroes  of  Charles 
Dickens;  The  Extremity  of  Sadre;  Irish  Lyr- 
ic Poetry;  The  Minnesinger  and  Meister- 
singer;  The  Audacity  of  Goethe;  King  Henrj' 
VIII;  Celebrated  and  Common  Friendship. 


"  Studies,  Literary  and  Social,"  by  Richard 
Malcolm  Johnston,  must  needs  attract  more 
than  ordinary  attention,  if  the  reader  has  not, 
in  the  multitude  of  books,  lost  something  of 
the  contemplative  feeling  that  belonged  to 
the  time  when  they  were  rarer,  and,  there- 
fore, more  companionable.  There  is  rare 
wit  and  kindly  satire  and  just  appreciation 
of  pedagogy  in  the  *'  Schoolmaster."  The 
article  on  the  legal  profession  is  worthy  a 
careful  study  and  that  on  "The  Delicacy  of 
Shakespeare  "  should  be  read  and  pondered 
over  by  all  lovers  of  the  poet.— ^(?^/c«  Globe. 


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jflDereMtb  IRicbolson 

Short  Flights ;  Poems  and  Sonnets 

Several  of  these  poems  have  appeared  in 
the  prominent  magazines  and  have  been  re- 
ceived with  great  favor  throughout  the  coun- 
try. This  volume  contains  fifty-eight  poems 
and  twelve  sonnets,  bound  in  parti-color  cloth 
with  red  edges.  i6mo.,  cloth,  75  cents;  flexible 
calf,  $1.50. 

Mr.  Nicholson  has  agreeably  surprised  us 
in  this  production,  not  so  much,  perhaps,  be- 
cause of  the  brilliancj'  of  the  thought  nor  the 
originality  of  the  themes  treated  as  because 
of  the  smoothness  of  the  rhythm,  the  choice 
diction  and  the  atmosphere  of  freshness  that 
prevades  the  whole.  It  is  not  intended  to  be 
read  through  at  one  reading,  but  as  the  author 
suggests  in  the  title,  these  are  little  morsels 
of  sweetness  with  which  to  fill  in  the  inter- 
stices of  time.  Short  flights  truly,  and  yet 
in  his  treatment  of  some  of  the  themes,  the 
poet  carries  us  irresistibly  along  with  him- 
self, and  then,  thus  impelled,  we  can  not 
help   but  let   fancy    take   us   where   it   lists. 

Through  many  of  the  poems  there  runs 
that  deeper,  truer  vein  of  poetic  beauty  which 
finds  its  harmonious  ending  in  the  life  above. 
—  Christian  JVation. 

THE  BOIVEI^-MERRILL  COo 
WDIANAPOLIS  AhlD 
KANSAS  CITY. 


IRew  IfiSooUs  ot  note 

Nebraska  Cropsey 

Graded  Exercises  in  Arithmetic 

Fundamental  operations,  designed  for 
Primary  Schools,  third  and  fourth  years. 
Adapted  to  be  used  supplementary  to  any 
series  of  arithmetic.  Board  covers,  25  cents, 
or  postpaid,  35  cents. 


Martha  Nicholson  McKay 
Literary  Clubs  of  Indiana 

Contains  chapters  on  causes  of  organiza- 
tion, kinds  of  organizations,  number  of  asso- 
ciations, typical  clubs,  influence  on  cultural 
development  of  State,  list  of  organizations, 
etc.     8vo.,  cloth,  75  cents. 


Catherine  McLaen  New 
A  Woman  Reigns 

A  novel,     i  vol.,  i2mo.,  cloth,  $1.00. 


Harriet  Newell  Lodge 
A  Bit  of  Finesse 

A  story  of  fifty  years  ago.     i  vol.,  i2mo., 
cloth,  $1.25. 

THE  BOIVEN-MERRILL  CO. 
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W.  p.  Fishback 

Recollections  of  Lord  Coleridge 

These  personal  recollections  of  Coleridge 
have  just  been  issued  and  will  be  of  great 
interest,  both  in  this  country  and  England. 
Handsomely  printed  and  bound  in  cloth, 
uncut  edges,  with  photogravure  portrait  of 
Lord  Coleridge,  fac-simile  letters,  etc.  Square 
i2mo.,  cloth,  $1.25. 


Sarah  T.  Bolton 
Songs  of  a  Lifetime 

Contains  fifty-three  poems  by  the  auther  of 
"  Paddle  Your  Own  Canoe."  Edited  by 
Prof.  John  Clark  Ridpath,  with  an  introduc- 
tion by  General  Lew  Wallace  and  a  proem  by 
James  Whitcomb  Riley.     i2mo.,  cloth,  $1.25. 


THE  BOIVEN-MERRILL  CO. 
WDIANAPOLIS  AND 
KANSAS  CITY. 


THE   PRINTING   OF  THIS    BOOK  WAS 
DONE   BY  CARLON    &    HOLLENBECK, 
INDIANAPOLIS,     FOR     THE     BOVVEN" 
MERRILL  COMPANY,   PUBLISHERS. 
M  DCCC  XC  V. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
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10Nov'60JC  " 

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